ANCHOR CHART ELEMENTS OF A STORY HOW TO

ANCHOR CHART ELEMENTS OF A STORY HOW TO

Plus check out these tips for teachers about how to scaffold learning. Watch this video of how they approach teaching theme. Finally, students write their own plots to match a given theme. Next, they create different endings to the tale and work together to identify how the new ending affects the theme. Humanities teachers Sara Kaviar and Megan O’Keefe, of the Wildwood School in Los Angeles, invite their students to work in groups to identify the theme of a fairy tale. Move from simpler to more complex class assignments to help your students deepen their understanding. Unlike the concreteness of setting or plot, theme is subtle and subjective. After you review as a class, give students a list of themes and main ideas and challenge them to work in pairs to create matches. You might practice identifying themes and main ideas using Disney films or the stories your students read last year in order to have a common reference point.

Teach these concepts separately and together. The theme is the underlying message that the author wants to convey, whereas the main idea is what the story is mostly about. Many students have difficulty differentiating between the main idea and the theme. Clarify the difference between theme and main idea Use reading comprehension anchor charts to outline the elements of the story or give students a graphic organizer to follow. When they work with theme, they have to synthesize all that information into an overarching message. Start with concrete detailsīefore they can identify and work with the theme of a story, your students need to have a strong grasp of the details: setting, character, plot. One goal with teaching theme, explains Jodi Libretti of the Great Books Foundation, is to encourage students “not only to think about ways that they can live, but the type of person they want to become.” 2. When you connect your literature themes to character development and what’s going on in students’ lives, your discussions will hopefully resonate deeply with them. Plan reading and discussion around questions that your students are already grappling with, from What does it mean to be a good friend? to What is heroism? Here are 14 tips to help your students understand theme as they read.

“You can’t think with ideas unless you understand them,” says Wilhelm. To fully explore theme, students must understand what they read and then extract ideas from the text. At the core of that conversation, however, is comprehension. Themes in literature are universal, so they not only relate to the characters and events in the story, but readers can also apply these ideas to their own lives.įor example, “Studying themes like trust, integrity, and honesty,” says Rachel Claff, editorial director for the Great Books Foundation, “builds thoughtful world citizens and friends, the kinds of thinkers you want to have in your classroom.”Įach time students read, they’re entering into a conversation with the author about what matters, says Jeffrey Wilhelm, distinguished professor at Boise State University and author of Fresh Takes on Teaching Literary Elements. Instead they use other literary elements, such as plot, characters, setting, conflict, and literary devices, to explore a theme that gives their story a deeper meaning. Authors don’t explicitly state the theme in their writing. In literature, theme refers to the overarching idea, message, or lesson uncovered by reading a story. And the answers can turn reading a book into a life-changing experience for young learners. Palacio’s Wonder, she looks forward to the discussion it will inspire, with questions that anchor the conversation like What does it mean to be a true friend? What’s the role of the bystander in bullying situations? and Can we tell what a person is like just by looking at them? It is conversations like these that facilitate teaching theme in language arts. When students in Becca Morris’s class start listening to R.J.

Anchor chart elements of a story