Mini Writing Lesson: Determining a theme

Writing Lesson:
Determining a Theme

Goals of this MiniLesson

Today's Goal:

You will be able to identify the theme of a story that you recently read.

Reminder:

In this lesson, you will be recalling information from a story of your choosing that you've read in this unit:

• “Safety of Numbers”

Theme Review:
What is a theme?

What is a theme?

A theme is the universal message in a story, poem, or text.

A theme statement MUST:
1. Be a complete thought or message. They are NEVER just ONE word.
2. They must use words like 'people' to make the message universal. They never use character names or PLOT DETAILS.

Example of a theme statement:

One theme in The Wizard of Oz is that home is more important to people than they often realize.

- complete thought
-uses 'people'
- does not summarize the story or include plot details

Fill in the Blanks

Rule Number 1: Theme statements must be a

thought or statement. They are NEVER just one word

Fill in the Blanks

Rule number 2: theme statements must use the word

so that they can be universally applied.

Fill in the Blanks

Rule Number 3: They never use

names.

Fill in the Blanks

Rule Number 3 (extended): They also NEVER describe the

of the story.

Things to consider to help you write a theme statement:

1. Did any characters change in the story? how?

2. How was the conflict in the story resolved?

3. Did you notice any interesting literary devices such as metaphors, similes, etc?

4. What are two big ideas in the story?

Watch me create a theme statement!

Poll

Now, let's create a theme statement together. First, let's pick a popular children's movie to work with.

• "The Lion King"

• "Frozen"

• "Sleeping Beauty"

• "Inside Out"

Let's create one together with the movie we selected!

Open Ended

You try!

Pick one of the movie options we DID NOT pick (Lion King, Frozen, Sleeping Beauty, or Inside Out) and create your own theme statement. Remember the rules to theme statements!

You may use any notes you have!

Congrats! You are a theme master!