Looking for Themes All around us
Lesson 1
Deeper insight, meaning
Use the text to infer
Is not plot specific
Present in many other stories
Gives the reader a fresh perspective about life or
the human condition
» In every genre
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Fiction
Nonfiction
Poems
Songs
Movies
TV episodes
» DOLL FACE
» Come up with 2 themes that are inferred through this
film.
» Write a theme statement and come up with at least
one moral for each theme.
» Theme Statement: People try to imitate
societal ideals of self/beauty until their true
identity is destroyed.
» Theme Statement: Media often influences
people to alter their identity to match what
they model.
» Morals:
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Be yourself/Don’t try to be something your not
Beauty is in the eye of the beholder
To thine ownself be true ~William Shakespeare
Find and keep your identity
Don’t let media/peers determine your identity
» Almost all songs contain a theme as well.
» What makes people like particular songs is
usually the theme that of the song.
» Discuss with your partner: What’s your favorite
song…and what is a possible theme in it?
» It is important to recognize the themes that
are working in the songs and books that we
read because the themes shape the way we
respond to a song or text.
» Now we’ll read the short story “All Summer in a
Day” while, again, keeping theme in mind.
» This story was chosen for many reasons, but
one definite perk is that you’re all familiar with
it from last year. We don’t have to worry about
comprehension and discussing what happened,
so we can focus on theme.
» We’ll read the story together, and then you’ll
make notes at the end of the story about
potential themes, theme statements, and
morals.
» If we don’t finish reading or you don’t finish
making notes, it’s homework.
» All narrative texts have themes, and when literary
critics start to look for these themes, they ask
questions like:
˃ “What is this text really about?”
˃ Or, “What is this text trying to teach me about life?”
» Then, they sometimes write long to grow their ideas.
» Last week, we talked through themes in “Doll Face”
and read “All Summer in a Day,” by Ray Bradbury, and
now together we can come up with the same ideas
for “All Summer…” So, let’s ask ourselves:
˃ What is Bradbury’s story really about?
˃ What is it trying to teach me about life?
» To get at the theme of a story, it can help to first think through
what some of the problems or issues are within the text, and then
to look for how this problem or issue appears across the whole
text.
» Let’s look at our anchor chart (also on p. 5 in your packet).
Problems in “All Summer in a Day” include:
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
Themes that emerge because of those problems are:
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
What is “All Summer and a Day” trying to teach me about ________________.
» So the first step is to name a big problem in the
story.
» For teaching sake, let’s say in “All Summer in a Day”
the big problem is, jealousy, although there are
plenty more.
Big Problem = Jealousy
» How does the story relate to jealousy?
˃ Kids live on Venus have never seen the sun.
˃ Margot, lived on Earth and does remember
the sun.
˃ The sun is coming out for the 1st time in 7
years.
˃ The rest of the kids are super jealous of
Margot for having seen the sun, so they lock
her in a closet so that she misses the sun,
which is really mean.
˃ Then after the experience the sun, they
understand Margot better and feel badly.
» So now we need to ask:
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“What is this story teaching me about this
problem, about jealousy?”
» Let’s think aloud:
˃ Kids act out when they are jealous and then
they can’t help themselves.
˃ So, maybe jealously can make you mean?
» You can use writing to explore further ideas.
» Look at the final step on the chart:
˃ Once you have an idea about what theme might be in a text—
“jealousy can make you mean”—it helps to do some writing.
» Write to explore the ideas by writing long.
Free write to get your ideas out and push your
thinking.
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To get started, I am going to name the theme.
Then I am going to ask myself questions.
How do I say more about this?
How does the theme relate to different characters?
What other questions could I ask to push myself to writing through
theme?
» Here’s what I came up with:
» One theme emerging in the text is that jealousy
can make you mean. Because the kids are
jealous of Margot, they keep her away from the
sun; they are mean to her. So jealousy hurts
Margot, the victim. But I think it also hurts the
children who are acting jealous, too. They feel
bad at the end of the story. They are not proud
of themselves. This is significant because it
shows that jealousy is harmful to everyone.
»Here are the steps that I followed:
˃ I named and reflected on the problem of the
story.
˃ We thought about what the story might be
teaching us about the problem.
˃ I wrote long about the idea.
» Now you are going to try it with a different
theme for the same story. What are some
themes?
» What is leading you to think these are
themes?
» Set a goal of gathering information and forming five
theme statements.
» Use the steps that we discussed.
˃ Name a central problem or issue that characters in the story
face.
+ What themes emerge because of this problem?
˃ Reflect on parts of the story that pertain to this problem.
˃ Think to yourself, “What is this story teaching me about this
problem, this issue?”
˃ Develop a theme statement.
(Repeat until you have five theme statements)
List
List
Write
Long
» Ways to push
your thinking.
» You should have written long about at least three of
the themes you’ve come up with today.
» As you write, ask yourself these questions:
˃ Do I sound rote and robotic?
˃ Have I developed these claims with evidence from my book?
˃ Is everything explained fully?
» You should have two full pages of writing
where you’ve generated ideas about
theme by the time you return to class
tomorrow.
» Today, you are going to pick one of the themes that
is emerging in your novel to write more about.
» Before you get too committed to just one theme,
it’s a good idea to step back and reflect on which of
the themes resonates for you, and to keep
searching until you find a theme(s) that does.
» Think of the theme(s) you want to write about
today and ask yourself whether the theme(s)
matters to you. If you aren’t connected to your
work, your readers won’t be either.
» For example, think about “All Summer in a Day” for
a moment. If you were considering writing a literary
essay on the theme that jealousy can make people
selfish or blind to others, you’d want to first think
whether that has been true in your own life.
˃ Have you ever been jealous and had negative
consequences?
˃ Have you ever noticed someone else’s jealousy and the
negativity that might have come from it?
» Then, ask yourself what do I want to learn about
this theme? What do you want to learn from
exploring your novel’s message?
» Here’s a conversation that I had with a student last year when he was
trying to decided the relevance of the theme of kindness to his own life:
˃ Flynn: I was writing about kindness and how hard it is to be kind
sometimes. And, well, I guess that can be hard for me too. Like I was kind of
a jerk to someone yesterday and now I am thinking that I could have been
kinder.
˃ Me: So what do you want to find out about kindness from this study you
are about to begin?
˃ Flynn: I guess I want to know what to do to, like, overcome the parts of you
that are not kind. I want to know how not to be mean, and I guess why that
is so tough sometimes.
» Now that Flynn has determined how the theme of kindness is relevant
to his own life, he can focus his thematic analysis on why the characters
in his novel have a difficult time being kind or trying not to be mean.
» Once you decide on a theme from your novel that matters to you. Ask
yourself:
˃ Have I ever seen this idea work in my life?
˃ Why might this theme matter to my readers?
» Today your goal is to compose 2 more pages AT LEAST
about the theme with which you feel most connected or
about which you’re interested in writing an essay.
˃ First, examine all of the themes that you and your
group have come up with yesterday and even
throughout Book Clubs.
˃ Next, determine the relevance of those themes to your
own life.
˃ Then, search for evidence in your novel that shows how
one of the themes is prominent in the book but also
relevant to your personal experiences and ideas about
that theme.
» DO NOT WORK WITH ANYBODY. I want you to be able to
compare your different conclusions with the rest of the
group in the upcoming lessons.
» Write two more pages on a theme (or two
themes if you can’t decide) that matter to you.
» Write about…
+ How the theme is present in your novel
+ What evidence from the novel supports your theme
– Try to find evidence from the beginning, middle, and end
– You can quote or just paraphrase
+ How you can personally connect to this theme.
» Remember, you need at least two more pages
(that’s four pages total of writing long).