Choosing a Thesis When the Question Is Open
A French response task gives a broad prompt asking what the prescribed text reveals about human fragility, with no further direction. You have 40 minutes and about 400 words. You could write a balanced survey touching four episodes, or a focused argument developed through two episodes. Your teacher has warned against plot summary but also against ignoring the breadth of the question. You know the text well, including one episode you find genuinely interesting but which sits awkwardly with the theme. You are unsure whether to include it.
1. Choose between the survey and the focused argument, and justify the decision in terms of how such responses are marked.
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Choose the focused argument through two episodes. A broad survey tends to become plot summary because each episode receives too little space for analysis of technique and effect, and the marking rewards sustained analytical depth over coverage. A focused thesis, stated in the introduction and answered in the conclusion, lets each paragraph name a technique, give brief evidence, and draw out effect, which is what earns marks. Breadth is satisfied by showing that the two chosen episodes are representative and by a concluding sentence that acknowledges the wider pattern, so the response answers the question without cataloguing the text. The constraint of 400 words makes this the only realistic route to depth.
2. Should you include the episode that sits awkwardly with the theme?
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Include it only if you can make it serve the argument within about 60 words, for example as a counter-movement that complicates the thesis and is then resolved. Handled that way it demonstrates independent judgement and can lift the response. If it would require more space to explain than the argument can spare, leave it out: an awkward fit that consumes a paragraph dilutes the thesis and reads as a detour. The test is whether you can state, in one sentence before writing, what the episode proves about fragility. If you cannot, it belongs in your plan, not in the response.