1. Kids buckled down and were fairly focused for today’s writing class. A few were able to hand their writing in for me to look over and offer suggestions for improvements. Most of the others were trying to complete their three body paragraphs before starting their introductory and conclusion paragraphs.
2. Even asked about creating a thesis so I wrote some examples on the board for everyone and reviewed the three-step thesis they have to create. Here are a few things to remember:

Thesis examples

Note:

•1.       Your thesis has to include your three paragraph points.

•2.       It must be in the order the paragraphs are presented.

•3.       You can create a very simple thesis or create a phrase for each topic and make it seem more developed.

•4.       By setting up each topic in a similar way, you can show parallelism in your thesis sentence.

Essay topic: Lennie’s fetish for petting soft things grows more dangerous throughout the novel.
Body paragraph topics are:

• a. The mouse
• b. The puppy
• c. Curley’s wife

Thesis:
Lennie’s habit of petting soft things ¹begins with a small mouse, ²grows more dangerous with a dead puppy, and ³becomes fatal with the death of Curley’s wife.

Essay topic: The various dreams characters have in the novel.
Body paragraph topics:

• a. Owning land
• b. Being famous
• c. Racial equality

Thesis:
Three dreams in the novel are ¹to own land, ²to be someone famous, and ³to gain racial equality.

Thesis: (more developed by adding phrases)
Of all the dreams evident in the novel, the most important ones are ¹the dream of owning land, ²the dream of being an actress, and ³the dream of gaining racial equality.