Persuasive Speech Thesis Submission

Persuasive Speech Thesis Submission

Purpose: To compose a clear, succinct proposal that asks your audience to make a change/take action

Task:

The thesis for the persuasive speech will be on the same topic as your informative speech. Your persuasive speech thesis will be a claim of value or a claim of policy. That means you will either:

Ask your audience to change a pre-existing belief/judgment/value and embrace a new belief/judgment/value (a claim of value).
Ask your audience to take a particular action in order to solve a problem (claim of policy).
I have an explanation/examples of each type of thesis below, followed by the thesis submission requirements.

Revisit and Revise

You drafted as persuasive speech thesis for the Topic + Thesis assignment.

That is a good place to start, though most of you will probably want to make some revisions.

For a value thesis, you should propose a specific transformation of values.

A value thesis should clearly state what you think the status quo is (the current, widespread set of beliefs that many people hold, which you want to change) then propose the new belief that you want people to hold by the time you end your speech.

Example: Patriotism is love for a country, not just pride in it

Note that here, it is implicit that seeing patriotism as “pride” in one’s country is the more common vision of patriotism. He then proposes a new way to be patriotic: love for a country.
For a policy thesis, you will propose a specific future action:

You should propose a specific action that will address a harm/problem that you have identified.

For example:

To help reduce the rising levels of student debt in Washington state, tuition for all public institutions of higher education should be reduced by 15% over the next 5 years.

Thesis Submission Instructions

Include 3 things in your persuasive speech submission. Please number them in your post. Submit the following to the discussion board:

Write out your thesis statement in one, declarative sentence (in other words, your thesis should not be a question).
Is your thesis a claim of value or a claim of policy? Explain in what sentence how you know which kind of claim it is.
How will your persuasive speech help address the problem you identified in your informative speech?