Understanding the difference between main idea and theme can be very confusing for our students. Sometimes your students feel like they need super powers to exam the text and magically come up with the theme.
We teach students that the main idea is finding what the story or paragraph is mostly about or the big idea, but theme is the overall idea or central message that the author wants us to know about life. This can be extremely difficult for our young readers.
The theme is often hidden like treasure in fictional text, and the reader needs to use higher levels of thinking to infer what the theme could be based on clues.
We teach students that the main idea is finding what the story or paragraph is mostly about or the big idea, but theme is the overall idea or central message that the author wants us to know about life. This can be extremely difficult for our young readers.
The theme is often hidden like treasure in fictional text, and the reader needs to use higher levels of thinking to infer what the theme could be based on clues.
We can help our students understand that the author will leave us clues from the characters words, actions, and plot details to determine the theme. The author wants to leave us as better, wiser people, so he or she plans for the story to have a message. This message or theme will usually help the reader learn a life lesson that applies to all people...not just the main character. It is important for our students to know the synonyms for theme: central idea, the message, author's message, life lesson, or moral.
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Looking for mentor text to introduce the skill of determining the theme in literature, click on the link to find a treasure chest of books to help with launching this mini-lesson.
Questions to ask as you read:
1. What is happening to the main characters? 2. How did the characters react? 3. Were their actions positive or negative? 4. How did they overcome obstacles or problems? 5. How did they get what they wanted? 6. Do they need to learn a lesson about life? Use clues from the text to infer the theme. These clues will become your text evidence to support the theme. Be sure to take out the character's name and apply the lesson to all people.
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Theme Lesson Slideshow
Click to advance slideshow.
theme_guiding_questions.pdf | |
File Size: | 511 kb |
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la_literary_theme_analysis.pdf | |
File Size: | 1723 kb |
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