Adding the Third Storey

Now that you have built, evaluated, and revised your two-storey thesis, it time to complete your university-level close reading thesis statement by adding a third storey. If the first storey is the bedrock on which you establish the author’s audience, genre, and best pieces of evidence, and the second storey is where you identify the aspects of the author’s complex argument you intend to analyze, then the third storey expands the scope to consider the larger ramifications or consequences of your reading of the author’s complex argument. The third storey is intended to relate the second storey to the big picture or explain its larger significance.

Remember the focus of the first two storeys. The first storey picks the best two pieces of evidence from the original text. The second storey proposes your analysis of the author’s argument. The third storey should expand to consider the original text’s argument as a whole and the larger world of the author’s audience. Keep in mind that your thesis will likely be different than your classmate’s: each of you will choose slightly different evidence and audiences, leading to different proposed analyses. Therefore, it follows that your third storey will be unique to you and your interpretation of the text. The key is that your third storey should follow logically from your first two storeys and expand the scope of your close reading to consider the breadth of the author’s complex argument and the significance of your analysis.