Experimenting with a New Assignment

As a professor at a regional state school, I read a lot of papers by undergraduate students throughout the academic year. Students who take my classes are required to write at least one paper, ranging from a book review to a research essay. After reading too many papers that do not contain a thesis or evidence, I decided to introduce a new assignment in one of my classes in an effort to teach students the basics of writing.

For my "Religion in Southern Culture" course, I ask the students to complete a précis for each of the four books that they read during the semester. In this assignment, students must determine the overall thesis of the book, the thesis of each chapter within the book, and two pieces of evidences that the authors use to support their arguments. 

Students download the form that I provide, and are asked to fill it out and submit the completed assignment onto Blackboard for me to grade. For example, the format for Christine Heyrman's Southern Cross: The Beginnings of the Bible Belt looks like this:
  
Answer the following questions in complete sentences and thoroughly:

• What is the overall thesis of the entire book?
• What is the thesis of chapter 1?
• Give two specific evidences that the author uses to support her thesis in this chapter (with page numbers)
• What is the thesis of chapter 2?
• Give two specific evidences that the author uses to support her thesis in this chapter (with page numbers)
• What is the thesis of chapter 3?
• Give two specific evidences that the author uses to support her thesis in this chapter (with page numbers)
• What is the thesis of chapter 4? 
• Give two specific evidences that the author uses to support her thesis in this chapter (with page numbers)
• What is the thesis of chapter 5? 
• Give two specific evidences that the author uses to support her thesis in this chapter (with page numbers)

My hope is that with this assignment students will learn how to identify the thesis of a scholarly book as well as specific evidence that authors use to support their arguments, making them better writers.