Develop Thesis: Fiction/Drama Practice Test

Read the following excerpt from an original drama. Then choose the best arguable thesis statement.

A front porch at dusk. Wind chimes. A “FOR SALE” sign leans against the railing, not yet planted.

GRANDMA RUTH: Don’t put that in the yard. The neighbors will start counting.

JAY: Counting what?

GRANDMA RUTH: Days. Mistakes. Who waved and who didn’t.

JAY: The house is too big for you.

GRANDMA RUTH: The house is the size of my life. You can’t downsize that.

JAY: You can. People do.

GRANDMA RUTH: People do lots of things. People also forget where they put their dead.

JAY: (holding the sign) It’s wood and paint, Grandma.

GRANDMA RUTH: It’s a sentence.

JAY: Then let’s write a new one.

GRANDMA RUTH: (touching the unplanted sign) You think if you don’t plant it, it won’t grow.

(They listen to the wind chimes. Jay sets the sign down gently, as if it might bruise.)

Which option offers the most defensible, arguable thesis about how the playwright uses metaphor and stage action to develop a central idea?

Read the following excerpt from an original drama. Then choose the best arguable thesis statement.

A high school gym decorated for a reunion. A banner reads: “WELCOME BACK, CLASS OF 2006!” A microphone squeals intermittently.

TESS: (straightening name tags) If we get the labels right, maybe we’ll get the people right.

MARCUS: I’m still me without a sticker.

TESS: (reading his tag) “Marcus—Most Likely to…” It trails off. The printer ran out.

MARCUS: Fitting.

TESS: You didn’t RSVP.

MARCUS: I didn’t know who I’d be by tonight.

TESS: (hands him a blank tag and a marker) Then write it.

MARCUS: (holds the marker, doesn’t write) If I write it, you’ll believe it.

TESS: If you don’t, I’ll fill it in for you.

(The microphone squeals again. Tess flinches; Marcus laughs, then stops when he sees her face.)

Which option offers the most defensible, arguable thesis about how the playwright uses props and sound to develop a central idea?