Reading
Unit 4 - More than the main idea
How can identifying the main idea and key details help me to determine the theme of a story or text and compare these messages across texts?
Students understand that identifying the elements of the story plot leads way to theme and the overall message you take away from a text.
The focus of this unit is on using the comprehension skill of synthesizing in stories, nonfiction, and poems to identify and explain the theme. Students will progress to being able to identify and explain how theme is developed differently in two texts and the role of author’s craft in this work. Students will do this level of work across texts in the same genre and be able to explain, citing text evidence, how they defend the theme they select. While working within stories and poems, students will study structural moves of the author and explain how series of chapters or stanzas in poems fit together. Working through nonfiction, students will be able to identify two or more main ideas of a text and explain and cite how they are supported by key details.