How to Write a Great Thesis Statement

Most ESL students learning to write an English passage have a hard time understanding the purpose of a thesis statement.

Here’s a simple approach: one thesis sentence pattern suitable for intermediate+ level students.

Part 1. What’s a Thesis?

A thesis has a few important features:

Everything in the story, passage or essay explains and proves the thesis. If someone asks what your essay is about, the best answer is to say the thesis.

Bad Thesis Examples

I asked a group of students to write an essay. The subject was poverty. I gave them a question to start their thinking:

Their job was to write the introduction paragraph with a clear thesis sentence. Here are some of their answers.

Well, none of these answers are good.

Part 2. How to Write a Thesis Statement

Here is a four-step process to write a thesis sentence using the above example about poverty.

First, choose a narrow topic. Poverty is a big idea. Be specific. So let’s pick an area. Poor villages in Africa is a good start.

Second, find the key parts of the topic. In this case, the question is, “What is the best way to stop poverty in a poor African village?” There are two parts in the question:

Third, change the two parts into two questions. Here is an example:

Fourth, create a thesis by answering each of these questions in one sentence. I suggest a sentence pattern like this:

Two possible thesis sentences:

  1. Donating money to World Vision is a great way to stop poverty in poor African villages because this organization helps children by giving them food, clothing and shelter.
  2. Helping people in poor African villages start their own businesses is a good way to stop poverty because it builds independence, creates wealth that stays in the local communities and reduces their need for donations from charities.

In each thesis sentence, we have described two parts:

Part 3 Practice the Sentence Pattern

Here are a few practice questions. Download the worksheet here and try writing some thesis sentences.

Expansion:

Ask students to chose one of the thesis sentences from the worksheet and write a 3 to 5 paragraph essay or story.

Part 4. More Practice

Another writing activity to apply this knowledge. Here’s the task.