Effective thesis statements for the AP Analytic Essay
Prompt: The passage below is from “The Indispensable Opposition,” an article by Walter
Lippmann; it appeared in The Atlantic Monthly in 1939. Read the passage carefully. Then write an essay in which you analyze the rhetorical strategies Lippmann uses to develop his argument.
Thesis: In “The Indispensable Opposition”, Walter Lipman asserts that the freedoms we have fought to give ourselves, those of opinion and speech, exist only because the existence of many views lets your own evolve. Lippman takes a disparaging tone with those who champion these rights on the basis that all deserve them, and instead points out to the reader how they, along with everyone else, could be lacking if those rights were not freely distributed.
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Prompt: In the following passage from The Great Influenza, an account of the 1918 flu epidemic, author John M. Barry writes about scientists and their research. Read the passage carefully. Then, in a well-written essay, analyze how Barry uses rhetorical strategies to characterize scientific research.
Thesis: Scientific research is made to be done methodically. There is even a widely known “scientific method” created in the 15 th century based on reason and common sense. It was created from a desire to make the unknown known. As Barry describes the scientific process, he says that uncertainty in the world of the unknown must be made a tool – a weapon, even – against one’s own convictions. However, that concept is very ethereal, so Barry utilizes comparison and logical hypothetical situations to convey that idea.
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Prompt: The passage below is an excerpt from a lecture delivered in Boston in 1832 by Maria W.
Stewart, and African American educator and writer. Read the passage carefully. Then write an essay in which you analyze the rhetorical strategies Stewart uses to convey her position.
Thesis: Maria Stewart uses her intellect and passion to call for equal rights and privileges for African
Americans. Her 1832 lecture employs brilliant rhetorical strategies to emphasize and support this position.
By effectively using figurative language, diction, and her point of view, Stewart is successful in describing and calling an end to the plight of African Americans.
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