Day 23: Critical Thinking and Thesis Statements

Class Today:
Please take the following survey on the plagiarism tutorial.

Review Critical Thinking
Look at the website- The Water Project
What's the problem?
Brainstorm two solutions with the people in your row.

Thesis Statements Warm-Up (5 minutes)
Find your thesis statement from your diagnostic revision. Critique your thesis statement. What do you like about it? What could use improvement? Why? Share your response in our shared google doc.

Practice (5-10 minutes)
On a scratch (blank) piece of paper, think of a potential thesis statement for the organization and problem found in The Water Project. You have 5 minutes.

Compare (5 minutes)
Now compare your thesis statement with these sample thesis statements. What is different? What is similar?

Research Thesis Statements
As you can see, research paper thesis statements are a little different than argumentative essay thesis statements. Now you will practice writing a thesis statement on The Water Project.
In the following groups:
Group 1-Changyoon, Maggie, Kevin
Group 2-Yutong, Hao, Shiyuan
Group 3- Yichun, Ruby, Yantong

First do part 1 of the handout I will give you.  I will give you feedback on your answers. Once I give you the OK, work on part 2.  Finally, share your thesis statement in our shared google doc, here.

Next Class: Thesis Statements & Outline

Homework:
1. Finish your Writer's Help exercises by March 20th. Remember, these are worth 2.5% of your grade.
2. Do steps 5 and 6 of the Pre-Research Portfolio by Sunday at midnight. Save the document as NetIDPreResearch56.doc
3. Preview the outline on the Pre-Research Portfolio template.