2019-2020 Academic Year Holy Family Academy Thesis
Course Description: Each student at HFA will be required to write and present a thesis in their Junior and Senior years. The thesis project is the logical conclusion to years of learning via the Socratic Method.
What is a thesis?
A thesis is a research project where the student examines a certain disputed topic, writes a dissertation and then defends the conclusion of the dissertation before their peers.
HFA uses the
disputatio method for dissertations. What is the disputatio method? While it predates him, it is a style of writing and teaching that was made particularly famous by St. Thomas Aquinas. It begins with a disputed question, a question that could, possibly and legitimately, have more than one answer. In the paper and presentation, after putting forth a question and defining some key terms, the student will move onto the objections. These are objections to the answer the student will ultimately argue is the right one. After the objections the student will give a reasoned and researched answer. This portion is usually called the responsio, or, the response, or, the
I answer that. After the answer, and building on the answer, the student will provide responses or replies to each of the objections.
The essential aspect of the disputatio that separates it from other kinds of writing is precisely the dispute. That is, in order to write in the disputatio method, the student must be able to understand not only their own argument, but the argument or arguments others might make which are directly opposed to the student’s. In order to do this they must, when doing research, read with an open mind, a mind attuned to wonder, to learning new things.
Aquinas is famous for not only being able to understand the arguments made by his opponents, but for being able to argue them better than they could. This is critical thinking in action, and it is at the heart of the Holy Family Academy’s educational mission.