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Name:____________________________________________Per.___Date:_______________

AP European History

Good Essay Paragraphs

An effective thesis paragraph has three parts:

1. The “Hook”—a sentence that catches the reader’s attention and introduces the essay’s topic.

2. The “Bridge”—a transitional sentence that links the hook and…

3. The Thesis—a defensible statement that comprises the controlling idea of the essay.

Kind of like this:

1. There were three million Jews living in Poland in 1939; by 1945, barely thirty thousand remained. 2. This statistic demonstrates Hitler’s determination to destroy European Jewry. 3. But that same determination showed itself in the actions of thousands of “ordinary” Germans who willingly carried out the Final Solution.

It’s vital that you write a logically developed thesis paragraph that invites the AP reader into your essay and clearly establishes your point. That’s the job of the thesis paragraph; if you don’t accomplish this task, you may well lose your reader before she or he even begins reading the body of your essay.

I. The first sentence: The “Hook”

Here are some different hook techniques to get your essay jump-started.

1. The startling statistic. That’s the kind I used in the first paragraph. Some other examples: “22 million Russians died during the Second World War” “As many as one in three Europeans were swept away by the Plague in the second half of the 14th Century” “Napoleon’s educational reforms increased French literacy by 50%” “The United States Government spent seven times more between 1941 and 1945 than it had spent between 1776 and 1941.”

2. The “sexy” quote. (“Sexy” is a term old grizzled newspapermen use.) The quote should be a) historical (song lyrics, movie lines, clichés will deal your essay an immediate death blow) or b) literary and c) related to the time period your essay will develop. “Here I stand, for I can do no more,” Martin Luther asserted before the Diet of Worms. Henry IV’s “Paris is worth a Mass” epitomized the practicality of this consummate politician. “It is better to be feared than loved,” Machiavelli observed, a dictum that Cesare Borgia took to heart.

3. Brief definition. “The Renaissance—that time in the 15th and early 16th centuries that saw an incredible cultural rebirth in Europe…” “The Wars of the Roses, a civil war that demonstrated the fragility of medieval kingship…”

4. The Jenny Craig. “Before the divorce issue that tore England apart, the English Church was the most progressive and competent in Europe; afterward, it was split into bitterly hostile factions.” “Before Ferdinand and Isabella, Spain was an idea rather than a geographical reality, but with their ascension to the throne, a modern nation-state was born.”

5. Establish the “when.” Use a year to get the reader into the essay: “By 1360, the Bubonic Plague had devastated Europe…” “Between 1866 and 1871, Otto von Bismarck untied Germany…”

6. The one-sentence anecdote (“story”): “In 1918, a British private, feeling sorry for a wounded German soldier, held his fire when Corporal Adolf Hitler came into his sights.” Or: “Nearly every cat in Paris disappeared during the long and hungry siege of 1871.” Or: “Martin Luther’s rebellion against his father presaged his later rebellion against the Pope.”

I HATE “question” hooks. “Have you ever wondered what it would be like to be blown up by a land mine?’’ I DON’T CARE!

II. The “bridge”

This is simply a transitional sentence that links the “hook” to the thesis.

By 1360, the Bubonic Plague had devastated Europe. This devastation, ironically, generated rising hopes among European peasants. The peasant revolts of the 1300s occurred when these rising hopes collided head-on with the traditional elites.

22 million Russians died during World War II. This appalling statistic played a major role in the beginning of the Cold War. Stalin’s seizure of Eastern European nations indicated his determination that the Soviet Union would never again fight a war of this scale on Russian soil.

III. The Thesis Sentence.

The worst thing you can do to a thesis sentence is to write it “mooshy”—that is, non-specific. ANSWER THE ESSAY QUESTION IN A SENTENCE, and answer it precisely.

Q. What conditions led to the Protestant Reformation?

A: Disorder within the Church, compounded by a profound social changes, led to Luther’s break with the Church.

Q: Why did the French Revolution lead to the execution of Louis XVI?

A: It was the King’s vacillation and ultimately his seeming betrayal of France that doomed him to the guillotine.

Q: How was Hitler able to come to power?

A: Hitler’s gift for rabble-rousing, matched by his exploitation of German resentment over the Treaty of Versailles, were fundamental factors in the creation of his dictatorship.

One technique that works for me when I’m trying to write a thesis is to think of it as answering the “how” or “why” of the essay prompt, or question.

(By the way, another thing that helps me, when I’m writing the CM for the end of a paragraph or the conclusion for the essay is to answer the question “So what?” Why is this stuff I just wrote about so brilliantly important, meaningful, significant?)

IV. A Word on Body Paragraphs

One of the most common mistakes I see in student essays is the lack of good topic sentences. When you don’t establish the point you’re going to make, the paragraph, and then the essay, falls apart—it has no unity and makes no sense. Be sure your topic sentences are excellent.

Another failing is the lack of CD’s. It is vital, in establishing concrete details, that you incorporate specific names, dates, events, places. Your job is to dazzle me with your knowledge—and to show that you were paying attention with class. [String ‘em together like a chain of paper clips]. When I urge you to “name-drop” in your essay, that’s what I mean.

Two words are forbidden in my history essays:

I (or any other personal pronoun). “I” should never be in the essay. What are you doing in there?

People. That’s a stupid word for history essays. Say instead: “Prussians” or “peasants” or “Royal Marines” or “left-handed Hungarian jugglers,” but NEVER “people.”

Then, when you end the paragraph, I want solid, thoughtful CM—the “so what?” idea I referred to earlier. Then, be sure to use transition words when you move on to the next paragraph; your essay should flow like the Mississippi—only much less muddily.

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I will not use “I” in an essay

I will not use “I” in an essay

I will not use “I” in an essay

I will not use “I” in an essay

I will not use “I” in an essay

I will not use “I” in an essay

I will not use “I” in an essay

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