Thematic Essay - Overview & Brainstorming

To successfully write a thematic essay response, one must focus on the task. Each of the task items must be addressed in the written essay response in order to receive full credit. This essay is completely from your memory of the topic chosen for the essay by New York State Board of Regents. There are no documents to assist you in writing this essay unlike a DBQ essay.

A generic scoring rubric is provided which explains how the thematic essay response will be graded. The maximum possible score is a five; the lowest possible score is a zero.

To earn the maximum score possible, consider the following steps for writing a thematic essay response:

Pre-Writing

Before actually writing the thematic essay response, one should analyze the task and organize the information that they wish to include in the essay response. It is also important to read the scoring rubric to ensure that the essay response meets all of the requirements necessary to earn the maximum score of five. Use the link below to download and print the generic scoring rubric.

Thematic Essay Generic Scoring Rubric

1. Carefully read the theme and the task. Look for clues that will help identify the information required to thoroughly address both the theme and the task. Underline those sections of the theme and task that you consider most important.
2. Draw a table or box that can be used to organize information and help in writing the essay response. Clearly label the one column heading “Tasks” and the following column heading(s) with the example(s) you wish to discuss. Suggestions topics for these examples can be found in the text after the task. Lastly, reserve the row headings for the individual task items. You may also use a Web Map Chart to organize your thoughts.