Disco - Voices of a New Generation

If your language arts learners have a hard time determining the universal theme of a written work, use a straightforward worksheet to help them find it. After reviewing a list of common themes, kids note the title, character, plot, point...

What's theme, and can texts of every length have one? Explore the themes of fives short reading passages with your middle school class. Encourage them to highlight specific places in the text where they recognized the theme. 

It's all well and good when you're asked to identify a speaker's tone using his or her body language, facial expression, and pitch and emphasis. Identifying the tone of a written passage is another challenge entirely. Check out an...

Identify and analyze the use of figurative language used in select pieces of writing. These pieces of literature will represent at least two pieces by one writer and at least two pieces by different writers. This lesson would be a great...

Read various texts to compare the themes across each text. Learners write a journal entry describing the most beautiful scenery they've seen and use a map of the United States to locate the Sequoia National Park and Muir Woods. They then...

Eleventh graders engage in the reading of the novel "The Scarlet Letter" while choosing a topic to write a literature response. They search the novel for textual evidence to include in writing a paper that supports a well thought...

Remember reading "The Lottery" and "The Possibility of Evil" by Shirley Jackson? Learners can experience and analyze the tension, themes, and human experience found in these pieces through reading and class discussion. They use...

Compare and contrast the themes of two works by J.R.R. Tolkien. High schoolers read The Hobbit and The Fellowship of the Ring, Then they write an essay that compares the themes found in each novel.

In this exercise, learners examine the difference between a theme, topic, and moral. After a class discussion on the definition of literary themes, the instructor reads The Cello of Mr. O by Jane Cutler. Next, individuals analyze the...

If you want some help with teaching themes and symbols in Animal Farm, this may be beneficial. After a class discussion about possible themes, class members write a paragraph explaining which they believe is the most important. Next,...