Digging Deeper
This week, our focus has been on the elements of a story. The final element that we are going to look at for the week is Theme. Theme is one of the most important parts of a story but can also be the hardest to understand.
Theme
“Winning isn’t everything.” “Follow your heart.” You’ve probably learned lessons like these at one time or another. Your own experience is usually the best teacher, but literature can also communicate important truths, or themes. A theme is a message about life or human nature that a writer wants readers to understand.
In this activity, you’ll learn how to figure out what the stories you read really mean.
Topic Vs. Theme
Have you heard the fairy tale about the duckling who doesn’t fit in? His siblings call him the “ugly duckling” because he looks different from them. In the end, the duckling discovers that he is actually a beautiful swan.
The theme of the story is it is important to accept people for who they are and differences are what make people special.
Clues in Theme
In some folk tales and stories, the theme is directly stated by a character or the narrator. In most works of literature, though, the theme is not usually revealed in the form of a direct statement but is conveyed through particular details. The theme is not directly expressed. As a reader, you need to infer, or guess, the theme. To make a reasonable guess, you have to consider certain clues.
Here is the example I came up with. I just made a statement regarding The Breadwinner and what I think was an important message from the novel. I then tagged Parvana, the novel itself and the Taliban. I chose to use multiple hashtags that describe themes of the novel and also included one of the major conflicts and setting of the story. Use this as a guideline but be creative. You can use this to describe the theme of any story you have read...seen etc. As long as it looks at theme!
The template has been shared with you on Google Classroom and has text boxes that can just be filled in.
#THEME Assignment
Your last activity for the week is to create a Tweet using the Twitter template that is posted on Google Classroom. Your job is to think of a story that you have read, a movie you've seen or something else that tells a story and come up with a statement about the theme. You want to be creative in your statement and use #hashtags and handles to incorporate other elements. Please see the example included.