Theme: The Search for Meaning

Build understanding of theme with an activity designed for The Cay and the Common Core. Small groups or pairs use graphic organizers to determine themes, find and record related details from the text, and formulate theme statements. In...

If your language arts learners have a hard time determining the universal theme of a written work, use a straightforward worksheet to help them find it. After reviewing a list of common themes, kids note the title, character, plot, point...

What's theme, and can texts of every length have one? Explore the themes of fives short reading passages with your middle school class. Encourage them to highlight specific places in the text where they recognized the theme. 

What is theme, and how can you find themes in literary works? These and other questions are answered by a colorful and engaging presentation that not only defines the term but also provides easy to understand examples. The slides...

Colorful contemporary images contained in a PowerPoint presentation will capture the attention of class members and model for them the how to distinguish between the subject and the theme of a work. A great want to introduce this...

Identifying the theme of a piece is crucial to understanding. Using the play Romeo and Juliet as an example, the concept of theme is explored in a video of a classroom lecture.

William Golding's Lord of the Flies is the anchor text for a lesson that teaches readers how to distinguish between a literary topic and a literary theme. Using the provided worksheets, groups first chart some themes and propose a...

Why does Charles Dickens have Ebenezer go from scrooge to light-hearted and generous? From "Bah, humbug!" to "God Bless Us, Every One!" After rereading Dickens' preface to A Christmas Carol, learners analyze quotations from the tale that...

Examine story development and historical disaster with your class. Learners view a video depicting the incidents surrounding The Triangle Shirtwaist Disaster. They use graphic organizers and the Internet to gather enough information to...

Model for young learners how to determine the theme of a story. Read aloud Aesop’s The Fox and the Stork. Chart the plot and the main idea of the fable, showing class members how these elements support the theme. Fable titles for guided...