Thesis Statement Activity

Instructions:  Following are excerpts from various drafts of essay #1.  In your groups, examine your assigned excerpt, and identify the thesis statement.  In the space provided, write down its strengths and weaknesses, and anticipate any problems that might occur when attempting to write a draft based on the statement.  (Be sure to refer back to Everyday Writer and the Thesis Statement Handout.)  Suggest ways to revise the thesis statement so it is more effective. 

1. Although society’s role in our identity is large, I believe that it is the parents who have ultimate control of how we become as males and females, in the early stages of life, and ourselves in the later stages.  Our parents decide whether to abide by the “rules” of our society or not, and raise us accordingly.  It is society’s views and pressures that are deriving our identity from its true identity, and is inversely affecting the diversity of people as a whole.  This society is attempting to make all humans the same, taking away our natural differences.

2. Traditions have been set stating that girls like pink and boys like blue.  Gender identity is conformed from society’s beliefs and traditions forced upon them.  Within the family, the nature vs. nurture theory takes a huge role in determining how that child will grow and develop within that new society.  The child will then grow their own values and morals that are generated by how they were raised in that particular atmosphere.

3.  The prompt states, “…one’s ‘behavioral traits’ are generally accepted to be a result of one’s culture or environment.”  I agree with this statement.  Most people get their style, attitude, and behaviors from those around them, media, and society.

4. Gender identity can be described in several different ways.  Some may describe it as a person’s molecular makeup, their outside appearance, or perhaps it’s just how one feels inside.  Whatever one considers being the definition, there is still the factor of society and the role we as a whole, play.  There are certain behaviors and dress we are supposed to abide by as men and women, while still keeping our “selves” unique.  For many of us this is an easy task; however, for a growing minority, this is a hard process to deal with.  For others not so much.

5. Webster’s Dictionary will tell you that gender identity is, “The classification by which you define as either masculine or feminine.”  What psychological or sociological factors determine whether we are man or women, masculine or feminine?  The answer most likely is our American society.  I will examine and explain how our gender identity is formed through our American society, what consequences gender identity has on people in our society, and finally how individual people are reacting and dealing with these consequences of their gender identity.