CREATING A THESIS STATEMENT IS A PROCESS.

STEP ONE: Identify your topic
EXAMPLE: Gold Rush in BC in the 19th Century

Before starting your research,

STEP TWO: list questions that come to mind.

• WHAT
  What is a gold rush? Did they take place only in BC?
  What was the “rush”?

• WHERE
  Where did the gold rushes take place in BC?

• WHO
  Who was involved? Young/old?  Where in the world did they come from?

• WHEN
  When did they take place?

• WHY
  Why would anyone want to participate in a Gold Rush?

• HOW
  How did it evolve?

STEP THREE: Start reading about your topic and add more specific questions to your list as you learn more about your topic. For example…

• WHO
  Why were minorities such as African Americans and Chinese attracted to the Gold Rush? Were there racist issues?

• WHY
  Why was the discovery of gold a carefully guarded secret?
  How did the authorities control the situation?
  What legal and illegal businesses sprung up to serve the population?

• HOW
  How much money was made from the gold? Who bought the gold? Who earned most of the money?
  Before cars and roads, how did people travel to and from the gold rivers?

• WHEN
  What was the timeline? How long did it last? What is left of the original communities? If I travelled to Quesnel or Barkerville, would I see anything of the original town?

• WHAT
  What technology was used in finding the gold?
  What services were needed to support the communities that grew up suddenly around the discovery of gold?
  What did the First Nations people think of the infusion of non-natives near their homes?  How did they fit into the new local economy?

• WHAT
  What effect did the gold rushes have on the development of a British Colony in the Lower Mainland? In what way did the gold rush help in building the infrastructure for the rest of the area?

STEP FOUR Continue reading in order to find answers to the questions. Follow your instincts and curiosity until you come up with a GENERAL ANSWER to many of your questions. Your answer is the FIRST DRAFT of your THESIS For example The discovery of gold in 1853 laid the foundation for a sound economy along the Fraser River, but it also laid a foundation for racial tensions, which would last well into the twentieth century.

STEP FIVE Continue your research; note-taking, collecting quotations and paraphrasing historians words and ideas - to prove your arguments throughout your essay. STEP SIX Refine your thesis as you learn more about your topic and it fits the essay that has evolved. You may narrow or enlarge your rough thesis, or even change it’s focus.

Here are 3 examples.

1.    The arrival of tens of thousands of Americans to the Fraser River in search of gold, not only upset the First Nations who lived there, it speeded up the British colonization of the mainland.

2.    Gold rushes ran through BC like wildfire. From the Fraser River to the Cariboo, in a few short years, fortunes were made by a few but the intrusion changed the lives of First Nations for the worse.

3.    The economic booms led by the gold rushes from 1850, on, created interest from Europe and America that eventually opened up the wilderness to what is now BC.