Yekaterina Loseva

Understanding Literary Theme

Theme in literature is the central underlying message that the author wants the reader to walk away with, and theme is often the hardest concept for a middle school student to identify. When it comes to critical reading, the concept of theme is one of the most important things readers need to understand, and yet its a skill that is quite hard for students to master. Theme is an abstract and inferential concept that involves students really scaffolding their thinking and going beyond the surface level of interpretation. Rebecca Lukens defines theme as "a significant truth expressed in appropriate elements and memorable language. The significant truth is an element that is essential to turn a simple narrative into literature. This truth goes beyond the story and comments on human beings" (1989, p. 111). Lukens goes on to state that the study of theme should be tied in to all subjects because it raises the level of thinking both for the student and the teacher. The learning progression of theme can be broken down into four critical components that the teacher must build upon during the novice and practitioner stage of the progression. In order to identity theme students must first master how to identify the main idea of a story since the main idea and theme are closely tied together. During my experience in the novice stage of the progression I found that identifying the main idea has been a skill that my sixth and seventh graders have been quick to master especially in fiction texts. Additionally, another skill that my students were quick in mastering was characterization my students are expects at making text to self connections which was reflected in their investment in the characters actions and the thought

process behind those actions. I was able to build on their understanding of characterization by scaffolding their thinking into two different categories for understanding which included how the character changes throughout the story and what the character learns in the practitioner stage. The area that was the hardest for my students to master was the inference component. During our unit on inference my students had a very difficult time making guesses on what the author did not say but meant in the novice stage. My students really struggled with inference because it is a higher order skill that requires the students to take an educated guess. The tool that really helped my helped my students pull all these skills together to identify theme was a visual chart broke up all the skills necessary to identify them into coherent steps which I began to use during the practitioner stage. To add, the visual was instrumental for my students in indentifying theme because it gave them a reference point and a step by step process to go through in order to be able to identify theme. Finally, during the independent stage students would show mastery by using the four components of theme to come up with their own theme statement given a sentence stem.
Learning Progression in My Topic Area Is about.. Identifying theme based on four critical components.

Novice: Defining CONCEPT(S) In order to master the concept of theme students first need to learn how to identify the main idea of a story. Additionally students need to know how to characterize the characters in the story. To add one of the most important parts about

Practitioner: Defining CONCEPT(S) During the practitioner stage students should begin to apply the main idea to stories independently. To add, during this stage students need to be able to characterize the characters of the story specifically how the character changes and what the

Independent/Expert: Defining CONCEPT(S) At this stage students should be able to identify the theme and back it up with evidence that they learned in order to complete the theme statement:

In Life.

theme is being able to make an inference. All of these components require students to go back to the text evidence presented and require the students to be able to evaluate text evidence to support their thought process. In essence this is the teaching stage in which the teacher is teaching the concepts and prompting.

character learns. Furthermore, during this stage students are still required to make an inference but should know the difference between an explicit and implicit inference. Evaluating text evidence is also a critical component to this stage, students should now begin to evaluate the text evidence independently. In order to move into the expect stage students need to show independence in the critical components that make up theme.

Essential DETAILS In order to be able to determine theme you have to first understand the main idea and character development throughout the story. My students are really able to synthesize the main idea of the story quite easily however they cannot make a direct connection between the main idea and theme because they do not see the link between the two skills. To add, in order to make an inference students need to have a sound understanding of how to make an inference which is a crucial step that my students have struggled with throughout the year. The skill of analyzing what the author did not say but meant is a very abstract concept for my students

Essential DETAILS During this stage it is essential for students to begin to apply the skills they learned independently. Students should be comfortable with how to identify the main idea. Additionally, at this stage students need to be able to characterize and break down the characterization process into if the character changed throughout the story and what the character learns in the story. This break down of the characterization process helps to scaffold students thinking and allows them to make connections and build on what they already know about character analysis. To add, this is stage in which students should be comfortable making inferences independently with

Essential DETAILS During this stage students should be able to put all the concepts that they have learned together, in order to be able to identify theme and back it up with text evidence. Students should be able to complete the statement: In Life independently by inserting the theme of the story.

which has turned into the point of disconnect because they are used to very literal concepts. The last step of being able to identity theme going back into the story and use text evidence to back up their thoughts. This is a stage that will center on teacher modeling through the I DO model. Additionally, this is a stage that will involve heavy prompting in order to scaffold student thinking into the practitioner stage in which students will be able to apply those skills independently.

no prompting. Once students have identified a clear theme statement they should be able back up their theme statement with text evidence. To help students with scaffolding their thinking this is when a visual should be applied if students are able to visualize the process they can make clear connections and see the linking patterns between the main idea, characterization, and theme which they can back up with the use of text evidence.

So what? What is important to understand about this?

Identifying the theme of a story is a higher order skill and requires the reader to make an inference. Theme is a skill that is frequently evaluated on state reading tests, it is important that students identify theme. In order to be able to identify theme students need to be able to identify the main idea of story, characterization, and inference students then need to put everything together by using text evidence. Theme is not a standalone skills and requires knowledge of four essential skills that will help scaffold students into identifying the theme of a story.

Additionally, based on the learning progression I was able to create a formative assessment that would evaluate the progress that my students were making in each stage of the learning progression. The formative assessment that I created was a graphic organizer that gave my students a series of scaffold questions they should be asking themselves as they try to identify the theme of a story. The students were required to answer those questions, and support

their thinking by using evidence from the text. I used the same organizer for all three stages so I could measure growth. After I distributed the graphic organizer