Essay 4 Prewriting:
Developing Your Thesis Statement, Organizing Your Body Paragraphs
Directions: Fill in the following outline with information from both pieces to help you find
connections, stay organized, and compile information for your literary synthesis. Make sure to
use your Essay 4 Organizer Chart and other assignments from this unit to help you as you fill
out this outline. Finding the connections between your chosen pieces is a fluid process that
involves a lot of revision. It is likely your thesis statement will change during this process—you
may end up scrapping some main ideas and starting from scratch several times. Be open to
changing your mind throughout the week. The How-To sheets for Essays 1 & 2 will be helpful
to you as you draft because they break down each segment of the paper (MLA, intro, body
paragraph structure, embedding quotes, transitions, & more) into parts and provide helpful
examples and guidelines.
NOTE: I’ve highlighted in yellow what you need to fill out/complete for this assignment. The
examples used throughout this outline are taken from Sample Student Essay (in Tasks for Week
7) which synthesize “The Weeknd And The Future Of Loveless Sex” and “Carly Rae Jepsen
Loves You Back,” from They Can’t Kill Us. Be sure to read through the whole Sample Paper for
a full example of how to successfully approach this assignment.
1. Which 2 Abdurraqib pieces will you compare & contrast? Your choices are
as follows: 1) “The Night Prince Walked on Water” (28-31) & “Ode to Prince”
(spoken-word poem found here, on YouTube); 2) “It Rained In Ohio On The
Night Allen Iverson…” (127-136) & “Serena Williams…” (232-237); 3) Any 2
They Can’t Kill Us essays of your choice, including ones you have already written
about or analyzed for other assignments this semester.
oPiece 1:
oPiece 2:
2. Unified Topic: For your thesis statement, show the overarching connection
between the two pieces by stating their Unified Topic.
o In Sample Paper 4, it is “how love has been devalued and why the
pursuit of true love is worth it”
o YOUR UNIFIED TOPIC:
3. Subtopics: Subtopics help show the unified topic by highlighting more specific
connections between your 2 pieces. To set up the subtopics in your body
paragraphs, take a look at what you have underlined and highlighted on your
Paper 4 Organizer Sheet, and list 2-3 subtopics that you see linking your two
pieces. From the Sample Paper, the subtopics are: 1) “his own experiences with
past relationships” and 2) his “observations of love and lust at concerts”.
1) Both pieces share the following subtopics:
oSubtopic 1:
oSubtopic 2:
oSubtopic 3 (optional, but if you see one, use it!):
2. Thesis Statement: For your thesis statement, state your Unified Topic and the
subtopics you will explore in the body section.
o From the Sample Paper, the thesis statement is: “In his essays “The
Weeknd And The Future Of Loveless Sex” and “Carly Rae Jepsen
Loves You Back,” Abdurraqib uses his own experiences with past
relationships and observations of love and lust at concerts to show
how love has been devalued and why the pursuit of true love is
worth it.”
o Feel free to follow this template: In essay 1 and essay 2,
Abdurraqib uses/explores/relates subtopic 1 and subtopic 2 to show
unified topic.
o YOUR THESIS:
3. Organizing & Analyzing Quotes: Write out quotes from each piece that convey
your subtopics, I’ve included space for 1 quote per piece, per subtopic, but be
sure to compile however many quotes you think may support any given subtopic.
Next, briefly describe how the 2 quotes relate.*For a strong example of this,
please read through the body paragraphs in Sample Paper 4 in this week’s
module—it breaks the subtopic from each essay into its own paragraph:
1) Body Paragraph #1: Covers Subtopic 1 in Piece 1:
oquote:
owhat it means/how it illustrates the subtopic:
ohow it illustrates the unifying topic:
2) Body Paragraph #2: Covers Subtopic 1 in Piece 2:
oquote:
owhat it means/significance
ohow it relates to Piece 1:
ohow it illustrates the unifying topic:
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