AutoCAD: Blueprint for a Thesis

John Acker shares this helpful approach to teaching thesis statements. I personally am a big fan of acronyms, as they help the students to retain information. It's even better when they're geeky!

AutoCAD: Blueprint for a Thesis

In both first- and second-year writing courses, I've had reasonable success teaching the thesis statement using the acronym CAD: Claim, Argument, and Difference. First, I tell them, any thesis-driven paper has to make a claim-- something specific about a detail or pattern of details that they've noticed. This goes beyond the all-too-common "there are similarities and differences" or "this text is interesting" generalities, but it isn't yet a working thesis. For that, they need to build on the claim to make an argument, ensuring that someone can reasonably disagree with their thesis. I use this example: "The cafeteria's fish sticks are gross" is a claim, since it identifies a detail and says something about it, but by itself it's not an argument. However, "The high concentration of fried food in the cafeteria promotes unhealthy eating habits" is an argument because someone could disagree. Once an arguable claim is in place, the final test for an effective thesis is whether it makes a difference in how we understand or interpret the topic. Some of this will vary by the assignment: a Commonplace essay will have different standards for what makes a difference than a literary analysis. But the principle is the same-- given the assignment guidelines and the purpose of the argument, does the thesis matter? At this point I often bring in the metaphor of the critical conversation, and encourage students to think of how they are contributing to it and moving it forward. Throughout the process, I emphasize that these three elements build on each other, since an argument is impossible without a claim and a claim can't make a difference unless someone can disagree with it. This helps students think of thesis formulation as a multi-step process, instead of just a one-line summary of their argument to be trumpeted in each paragraph of the essay.