Lesson: Identifying Theme Within a Text

Objective:  I can identify the theme of the story by connecting it to the main idea and asking myself what is this story mostly about?

Do-Now:  Journal Prompt:

What is one a theme you really enjoy reading about in stories? 

Connection:  Sometimes the author really wants us to get a strong idea when we read a book.  The author really wants us to know what the book is mostly about and he does this by connecting it to a theme.  There can be many different themes about books.  Think of the theme like the “big idea” of the book.  For example do you like reading about friendship, respect, school? 

Let’s talk about some of the books we have read and what their themes are. 

Teach/Model: Teaching Point: Good readers can identify the theme of a story by asking themselves what is the big idea of this book? 

-Model using the different posters on theme how we can put some of the read alouds we have read under different themes:  print out posters using this website:

http://hill.troy.k12.mi.us/staff/bnewingham/myweb3/

go to literacy links, reading workshop, and then down to read/aloud theme link.. print posters there or you can make your own on chart paper as you go

Read a story to the class identify theme.

  -Students will put their read aloud book under one of the themes.  You can also do a theme sort on paper for kids if you’d like

Independent Work: 

(Students should have 20-30 minutes of independent reading/work time)

- Students identify theme in their book by using a sort or using a journal entry.

What is the theme of your story and why? 

(Differentiation between groups is imbedded within the level of independent reading book they are currently reading.)