The Thematic Statement Checklist

The checklist takes a thematic statement a student has already drafted and runs it through five ordered checks, then a revision step. Every check that reads Not yet points to one specific thing to fix, so students can improve a statement on their own rather than waiting for it to be marked.

It helps students:

• tell a topic from an interpretation, so the statement makes a claim about an idea rather than naming it;
• move past plot, saying what the text means rather than only what happens;
• test whether the statement is specific enough to belong to this text and not any other;
• check that it stays arguable, something a thoughtful reader could reasonably read differently;
• confirm the text genuinely supports it;
• revise the statement until every check reads Yes.

It works with any text and needs nothing more than a drafted statement and a few minutes.