P1 Thesis statements

A thesis statement, in the context of a Paper 1 analysis, is a sentence that comes at the end of the introductory paragraph that clearly states the purpose of the stimulus text and how that purpose is achieved through several major stylistic features.

  1. Below are three introductory paragraphs to Paper 1 analyses. The thesis statements have been underlined. What do the introductions and the thesis statements all have in common? How are these introductions similar or different to introductions that you have been taught to write for other essays?

  2. Text 1 is an advertisement or poster from an awareness campaign by the American Civil Liberties Union. It borrows visual structures from a wanted poster, such as font, colour and lay out, to make its readers more aware of the problems of racial profiling in America.

    Text 1 is an open letter from Kiara Imani Williams, a third- year law student in the United States, to President Obama, which was published on LinkedIn Pulse on 18 March 2015. Williams is critical of President Obama's broken promise to make higher education affordable for her and the American middle class. Through Williams' use of anecdotes, rhetorical questions and pathos, she calls on Obama to save the American Dream and deliver on his promise to make higher education accessible to all.

    In 2011 Jack Layton delivered a speech to his fellow New Democrats in Québec, encouraging them to vote for him as the new Prime Minister of Canada. His use of language, especially his use of anaphora, tricolon and pronouns, is typical of speech writing and helps him achieve his purpose of getting people to vote for his New Democrats party.

  3. Return to your annotations from the previous activity, in which you annotated a text from Politico. Can you identify the author's main purpose in writing this text? Can you identify 2-4 major stylistic features? Write a thesis statement that connects these features to the text's purpose.

Last modified: Saturday, 8 February 2020, 10:49 AM