Hey, hello. Yes, this is Tim Freitas. I'm sorry, what? 80% of my viewers are not subscribers? Well, I can't fix that.
But you can. Make sure you subscribe before this video is over, especially if you're a repeat viewer. That really helps us out. Do you all know what AP stands for?
Advanced placement? Agony and pain? No. Anxiety and pressure?
Well, may... No. Answer the prompt. Nailed it. And you can't answer the prompt without a strong thesis.
So today, I'm going to show you the only thesis statement you'll ever need. for all of your AP Lit questions. If you don't know what a thesis statement is, we first need to fix that problem.
A thesis statement is a singular complex sentence that will work to guide a whole essay. This sentence is typically placed at the end of an intro paragraph. AP exam hint, instead of writing a full intro paragraph for your essay, just write your thesis as your intro paragraph. Yes, on exam day, it's perfectly fine to have your intro paragraph be one sentence long, especially if it's good, which this template that I'm going to give you will be.
Okay, let's start with the basic thesis structure. In general, the best template for responding to any literary prompt contains three major movements. The first movement contains the title of the piece you're discussing, the author's last name, and any literary or poetic devices that you're going to be discussing in your paper, but those have to be based on the prompt that you're actually responding to. The second movement in the structure provides an interpretation of how those elements listed in the first movement influence your interpretation of other elements within that work of literature. So in the second movement, you're going to not only be talking about actual things or characters in the story, but you're going to be combining them with inferences or judgments you're able to make as a reader, noticing what you mentioned from movement one.
And the final movement in this thesis format is going to move your interpretation of the literature towards being entirely universal. So you won't be mentioning any element in the literature itself, just the ideas that the story explores and the relationship between them. Thus, no characters, no author in this last movement here.
Just ideas. All of this may sound long and complex, but it's really not. In fact, if you look right at the bottom of the screen, you're gonna see the basic template right there.
Having the general template may still not make this clear, so I'm going to provide you with three example thesis statements. One for each question on the AP Lit exam. Poetry, prose, and literary argument.
When I do, I'll pair each one with an AP Lit prompt so you can see these in action in all lit circumstances. I'll also show you what each thesis can look like if you have a teacher who prefers that you not list literary elements in a thesis statement. Here's an AP exam hint.
I have my students list their literary elements in their thesis statements because it helps with organization under pressure, so I recommend that you do it. From here on out, when I present each prompt, I'm going to encourage you to pause the video and check out the prompts in their original forms with their readings if you want to have a full understanding of what's going on. But you don't have to if you just want to see the templates in action.
We're going to start with question one, the poetry essay. Check out this prompt from the 2010 exam. Don't forget it's linked in the description right down below. A thesis following this common lit template would look something like this.
In her poem, The Century Quill, Marilyn Winnick describes childhood memories, presents natural symbolism, and conveys the speaker's hopes for her future in order to showcase that although the lives of her relatives play an integral role in creation of her quilts multifaceted pattern her own experiences are particularly more significant ultimately illustrating that personal identity is comprised of the intricate interplay between past present and future generations a thesis that removes the literary elements still rocks, but it just needs to get rid of the listed lit elements at the beginning and the words in order to. You'll also need to add an S to the end of the word showcase or highlight, whichever one you chose from the template. Check out what this might look like with the same thesis, just without the lit elements. In her poem, The Century Quilt, Marilyn Wannick showcases that although the lives of the speaker's relatives play an integral role in the creation of her quilt's multifaceted pattern, her own experiences are particularly more significant, ultimately illustrating that personal identity is complete.
comprised of an intricate interplay between past, present, and future generations. That thesis is still solid. It's nice and open.
You can write a killer paper with that. Let's check this out with a question two, which is the prose passage. And we're going to actually stick with the 2010 exam, but we're going to switch to Form B. This particular prompt and passage is a personal favorite of mine.
It's linked in the description and it's about to show up right on your screen. Here's a look at a thesis that follows our moves for this particular prompt and passage. In the excerpt from the short story Cherry Bomb, Maxine Clare presents a childish philosophy, contrasts a juvenile lesson with a harsh reality, and presents an arduous journey along with an attitude of...
of gratefulness in order to highlight the narrator's childhood as a time of blissful and naive adventure, ultimately illustrating that nostalgia brings comfort and joy to a mature mind. That thesis is delicious. Once again though, what if your teacher has a problem with listing those literary elements in the thesis? I've got you covered. Here's an example for this passage.
In the excerpt from the short story Cherry Bomb, Maxine Clare highlights the narrator's childhood as a time of blissful ...a naive adventure, ultimately illustrating that nostalgia brings comfort and joy to a mature mind. By the way, I'm pretty sure the kid who wrote that thesis got a 5 on his exam. If you made it this far in the video, I like you almost as much as I like the people who are about to show up on the screen. They help fund the GOE so we can produce videos that you can like too.
So click that like button right down there. Okay, last but not least, let's see this thesis in action for question three, which is our literary argument. This next prompt is old-school, like older than I am. It's from 1982. It's not linked, but that's only because it's not actually published online anywhere. Luckily, there's no reading period with it, so we're okay.
Check out our prompt right here. If I were to answer this prompt using the book of Mice and Men, our final thesis in response to it would look like this. In the novella of Mice and Men, Steinbeck presents two mercy killings in order to showcase the deep care that the characters involved shared with one another, ultimately illustrating that companionship is a very important part of life. often requires immense sacrifice. Now I'm not gonna offer another option for this particular prompt because if I were to take out the literary elements, the two mercy killings, it would be hard to recognize that this thesis was actually responding to a prompt about violence.
But if you've noticed how I've modeled the template in response to questions one and two. You'll be able to figure it out on your own for question three if you need to take literary elements out. If you're looking to learn a surefire way now of how to find universal insights, you're going to want to subscribe to the Garden of English, click the bell, like this, and then follow that up by watching this video here.