BAD: Drug abuse is a big problem.
BETTER: Heroin, long regarded as a street drug, is fast becoming the drug of choice among middle class urban professionals.

 BAD: Herman Melville is the author of Moby Dick.
BETTER: An increasing amount of historical evidence suggests that William Shakespeare is not the original author of many of his most famous works.

 BAD: The death penalty is wrong.
BETTER: No civilized society can condone the death penalty if the moral question, "Should the state punish an act by participating in that act?" is raised.

 BAD: The so-called "right to bear arms" is a bunch of crap.
BETTER: While revered as truth by many Americans for decades, the Constitutional "right to bear arms" has in fact been misinterpreted.

 BAD: Many people write personal letters on the typewriter or word processor.
BETTER: While many regard type-written personal letters as the end of common courtesy as we know it, they actually preserve the ancient art of letter writing.

 BAD: There is a lot of symbolism in The Scarlet Letter.
BETTER: Hawthorne's use of symbolism in The Scarlet Letter falters and ultimately breaks down with the introduction of the character Pearl.

 As you can see, a thesis statement does not have to be popular to be workable. It's not a good idea to try to prove something with which you fundamentally disagree, but it can be done. The thing to remember is that a thesis statement should TAKE A POSITION.