In your base-level English courses, your thesis statements likely followed this general MA+2 structure:
Text information (title, genre, etc.) and author context (full or last name and relevant identity markers for the argument) + Main Argument of text + 2-3 subclaims
Author and activist Audre Lorde, in her 1979 speech “The Master’s Tools Will Never Dismantle the Master’s House,” argues that an intersectional approach is necessary to work toward dismantling oppressive structures because a larger collective is more effective than a singular community voice and oppression is interconnected and affects many.
In the case of the thesis statement for a rhetorical essay, this class will be using an MV2P:
Main Argument and text & author context + Value statement (effective/ineffective) and audience identification + 2 rhetorical strategies + Purpose
Author and activist Audre Lorde, in her 1979 speech “The Master’s Tools Will Never Dismantle the Master’s House,” argues that an intersectional approach is necessary to work toward dismantling oppressive structures. Lorde effectively argues this for her audience of female academics by referencing well-known white feminist authors as well as integrating her personal tokenization at the conference as one of the only Black lesbian speakers present. She argues this to get her audience to start actively assessing their part in oppression and joining the fight against it.
As you can see, the MV2P thesis has the same basic structure of the MA+2, but adds info from the rhetorical situation (audience and purpose) as well as a value statement that addresses the effectiveness of the argument by the speaker. Because of this addition of necessary rhetorical information, the thesis will inherently be longer than a sentence. This form may also feel a bit familiar because lot of the things addressed in the MV2P statement are also addressed in the rhetorical prcis structure!
DIRECTIONS: For this assignment, I am asking you to write your thesis statement for MWA1 where you must identify at least two strategies used in the text you’ve chosen (whether that be a speech or a performance).
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- Read through the prompt before you attempt to create your thesis statement:
- Remember that there are examples of MV2P thesis statements in
- Turn in as a PDF with a header, page numbers, title, and your thesis in the body of the page
Tips & Tricks:
- To determine which strategies you’ll end up going with, make sure you can find at least two times that strategy was used in the text. If you can do that, then they should be good to go! If you can’t, pivot to strategies that have more examples.
- This essay is not addressing fallacies (or rhetorical tools used badly or ineffectively), so that will help you determine what language you will use for the value statement. If you don’t think that the text you’ve chosen is effective in its use of rhetorical strategies for their specific audience, then move to a text you find to me more rhetorically effective for its audience.
- Remember that you are not being asked to determine whether you agree or disagree with the argument of the speaker, you are determining how effective a text’s argument is based on rhetorical strategies used for a specific audience. You’re seeing how effective they likely were for the people they were trying to make act (buy product, donate money, do something)!
- Use the examples or the given format as a fill-in-the-blanks outline to make it easier for you
Remember the texts you have the option of writing your essay about
Speech List:
- > note that you’re focusing on Milk, not McKellen
Performance List:
This Is America Childish Gambino (2018)
Strange Fruit Billie Holiday (1939)
“Hind’s Hall” Macklemore (2024)
Blackbiird Beyonc Knowles-Carter feat. Tanner Adell, Brittney Spencer, Tiera Kennedy, Reyna Roberts (2024) /
Written by Paul McCartney & John Lennon (1968)
Beyonc Bowl Beyonc Knowles-Carter’s 2025 NFL Christmas Day Halftime Show
Requirements: doesnt matter as long as it meets directions/expectations
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