I have to admit my kids have got me fully invested in “Is it Cake?” At some point in England last year, someone begged for us to watch the show while we ate green pesto pasta on the couch after a long day of hiking in the New Forest, and I said sure.
It was the beginning of our “Is it Cake?” era.
We’ve gasped, we’ve squinted, we’ve cheered.
We all love trying to tell which one is a purse and which one is a cake, and we’ve all exclaimed in SHOCK over those cake-based faux-leather laces.
All of which is not really an ad for the show, but just my introduction for today’s idea for gamifying the study of thesis statements.
Because you guessed it, we’re all about to ask ourselves… IS IT A THESIS?
This month, inside The Lighthouse, we’re focused on argument. If you’ve never heard of The Lighthouse, it’s the community where I share all the curriculum I design and we hang out and talk about how to use it (and a million other things related to teaching). Most months we choose a theme, sometimes with a guest expert, and explore ideas and resources related to that theme. There are SO MANY argument resources in there right now as we roll into May, and I thought it would be fun to chat through them on the podcast.
If you’re a Lighthouse member, you’ll be hearing, with depth, about what’s available to you in The Lighthouse. If you’re not, you can adapt these ideas and use them in your own way. Or, you can join The Lighthouse if you start to get excited about having me as your curriculum design partner – it opens again next month.
Setting up the Game
So anyway, back to the topic at hand – Is it a THESIS?
Figuring out how to write a good thesis statement is one of the most challenging things for many student writers.
There are so many traps to fall into. A student might write a thesis with zero room for argument (yes, in other words, a statement of fact). A student might write a moral, a fragment, a vague generalization impossible to prove, a theme. There are a lot of ways to mis-step.
So I wanted to start my “Is it a Thesis” game with a quick review of what a thesis is. A sentence stating a clear, specific argument.
Which would usher in the first round of the game – FIND the thesis.
Round One: Find the Thesis
In this round, students work together in pairs to figure out which thesis statement on the slide is real and which ones are trying to fake them out.
Here’s an example I used. Listen and see if you can spot the thesis and the fakes.
Option One: “By leaving the ending unclear, Reynolds forces participation in the moral questions of the book.”
Option Two: “Reynolds’ open-ended finish is disappointing.”
Option Three: “Reynolds leaves the finish a mystery as Will steps off the elevator.”
The trick in this round is to keep floating fake theses that make the common mistakes your students make, like inserting a moral, a sentence fragment, a super vague statement, an obvious fact that can’t be argued, etc. BUT you don’t want it to be TOOOO obvious, or the game won’t be fun.
After your students have time to make their choice with their partner and write down their reason, you can let the class vote and see if they get it right. Then go through and explain which one is the thesis and which ones ARE NOT (and why).
Run through as many rounds as you want. After round one, consider having everyone tally their points and give them to you on a small paper, then putting up a scoreboard with the top three scores WITHOUT any names. It’s a leaderboard so everyone knows whether they’re close to the top and can get excited about trying to win without actually calling anyone out as leading the way (or not).
Round Two: Spot the Fake
Now it’s time for round two, Spot the Fake. This one kicks it up a notch. TWO of the options are thesis statements with only one demonstrating a fatal flaw.
The basics are the same, kids continue to debate quietly with their partners, write down their choice, and explain their answer. Once you give everyone time to consider, you can once again run a vote and go through the choices, explaining which thesis is problematic and why. Everyone continues to give themselves points along the way.
Rinse and repeat!
The Wrap Up
As per usual, a fun prize at the end never hurts, or maybe there can be those little neon grocery store mini-cupcakes for everyone. (Side note, my son’s amazing science teacher has one of those mini-cupcakes in a glass dome in her classroom from about four months ago and it still looks EXACTLY the same. What does that mean???)
If you come back to the game later on, you can give students an assignment to design slides for the game (with a template), submitting one “Find the Thesis” slide and one “Spot the Fake” slide for the text you’re reading. Then you can check over the slides and tweak them before playing the game, and students can see if they manage to fool their peers as they get better at the game – and at writing good thesis statements.
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