Teaching students to discover the theme of a book can be both fun and frustrating. Some students grasp the concept quickly. For others, it can be a genuine hurdle. Not only do students require to have a strong comprehension of the story’s elements (like plot, setting, and characters), but they also must be able to make assumptions to find the author’s message since authors do not overtly state most themes.

Start with concrete details

Before they can recognize and work with the theme of a story, your students need to have a firm grasp of the details: setting, character, plot. When they work with harmony, they must include all that information into an overarching message. Use tie charts to outline the elements of the story or give students a graphic organizer to obey.

Use essential questions.

Essential questions are open-ended, thought-provoking, and critical for supporting students to understand the theme. Questions like Why do people act honestly? And What does a good friend? are ones you can turn to throughout the year to investigate how students answer. Notice how their answers change as you read many authors’ takes on the subject.

Introduce Short Texts Using Task Cards

Using task cards for themes gives your students a great deal of practice quickly, making them an excellent way to begin to practice finding the piece using text. Students can read various task card stories and practice finding the theme 20 – 30 times; in the time, they might need to read a report and see the theme once. You can do task cards as an everyday activity, play Scoot, or do a whole class scavenger hunt. Scavenger hunt helps to make sure everyone has a partner and pairs stronger readers with struggling readers.

Explain the difference between theme and main idea

Many students have trouble distinguishing between the central idea and the theme. The theme is the underlying information that the author needs to move, whereas the main idea is what the story is essentially about. Teach these concepts separately and together. To have a common reference point, you might practice recognizing themes and central ideas using Disney films or the stories your students learned last year. After reviewing as a class, give students a list of themes and leading concepts and challenge them to work in sets to create matches.

Add Some Writing

After students have worked on a theme for a week or two, Students can create their own short stories which show a vital piece without directly stating it. It changes each student’s role from a theme finder to a theme creator and provides students insight into how authors build a situation that offers a theme to unfold. After students are finished creating these short stories, it’s happy to share them in some way to give more theme practice.

Teach Students to Extract The “Big Idea”

One common misconception that middle students make when trying to identify the theme is that they get attached to the characters or events in the story. They cannot imagine beyond the small world elements of the story to extract the big world lesson of the theme. The student is held in the small world of the story and needs to take the mental jump to the big world idea.

Teaching students to differentiate between the small world of the story and the big world idea will help them express their understanding of story themes more accurately.

Conclusion

Knowing the theme of a story is a higher-order skill and requires the reader to conclude. Consequently, some students have a tough time recognizing themes. Because this skill is often evaluated on state reading tests, your students must identify themes with reasonable reliability.