Teaching Theme in the Upper Grades and a FREEBIE!

In reading, we recently finished up a week long unit teaching theme, and for the first time ever, it went fabulous! As of this blog post’s original date, this is my 3rd time teaching theme of literature, and to be honest, I have always struggled to find theme activities and resources to help my students really understand this tricky concept.

This year, the stars aligned and everything fell into place. Let’s take a look at the different activities and resources that I used to teach theme to my fifth graders and how I sequenced the different theme activities. Spoiler Alert: I think that the sequence of how I used the theme resources was key in my students’ mastery.

Theme Anchor Charts

We started off with a couple of theme anchor charts. I love using anchor charts to keep a running list of different examples of themes. I started this particular anchor chart with some common themes, and then we added to it as the students discovered more throughout the week. I really stressed how theme was a real-world connection or life-lesson, so they would understand that it was not specific to the story.

As we added more themes to the anchor chart, I still had a few students confusing themes with summaries, so we made a quick IS and IS NOT chart on the bottom of our second anchor chart.

Using Read Alouds to Teach Theme

With any reading skill or strategy that I teach, I always begin my reading instruction using read alouds (and often picture books). Using picture books is not only engaging for my 5th graders, but is also helps them initially begin to master a reading skill. Click here to read more reasons for using read alouds with 4th and 5th graders.

When they are presented a skill through something non-threatening (like a picture book) and having it read-aloud, students are able to focus on learning and applying the reading skill (versus focusing on decoding and comprehending at the same time). Click here to read more about my favorite read alouds for teaching theme.

After we went over the theme anchor chart and discussed the skill (as well as going over a few example themes), I then read 1-3 picture books (over the course of two days). Through guided practice and a lot of student discussion, we determined possible themes for the stories. We also (and this is important to do from the very beginning when teaching theme) analyzed the textual evidence that supported the theme.

Finally, we also made sure we discussed how the themes of the stories I read were different from the summaries of the stories. I always use this language when discussing this part with my students.

The theme needs to connect to the story but it should never be specific to a story. A summary is specific to one story. A theme is a statement that you can apply to your own life or another situation that may be vastly different from what happens in the story.

Want to see my recommended read alouds for teaching theme? Click here or on the image below.

Identifying Theme Practice

Once we were finished with our read-alouds, we began practicing theme using shorter texts and typically using texts found on task cards. I use two sets of theme task cards in my instruction and these task cards during the initial introduction.

Part of the success of my theme instruction is allowing my students numerous opportunities to read stories and analyze the theme of those stories. Theme task cards work perfectly for this because they are shorter and the students can read more and get more practice (versus only reading long passages for practice).

When reading these shorter stories as a class, we made sure that we not only identified the theme of the story, but also provided sufficient textual evidence to support that theme. We also wrote down any additional themes that the stories also had.

Small Group Theme Practice

Teacher-Led Group for Re-Teaching Theme

Midway through the week, I had my eye on those struggling students and knew I needed to get them in a small group before we moved on to passages that were longer in length. The biggest problem that they had was not fully understanding what a theme was and how that theme related to a story. They were constantly confusing theme with summary.

To support the students and re-teach theme, I began with a pictorial representation sort instead of stories. We looked at pictures that represented common themes. We discussed what was going on in the picture and connected that to a story.

After analyzing the content of the picture,  I asked them what life-lesson they could learn from the picture. Then we connected life-lesson back to theme. Using the language of “life-lesson” and then connecting that back to theme was helpful for the students for sure. Finally, we looked for the card that contained a theme that best represented the picture.

We continued sorting the pictorial representation of the theme with the theme itself while I asked guiding questions and connected what they were doing to what they would do with a story.

Here are the pictorial representation cards that I used. {These are available in my Teaching Theme: Differentiated Unit.}

In the other theme center, the students wrote short stories with a theme of their choosing from our chart or choosing a theme from a set of cards included in the reading center. They loved this theme activity because it allowed them to be creative.  When they were finished writing their stories, they were able to switch with partners and practice identifying theme of each other’s stories. This theme activity is also available in my Theme Resource found on TPT.

Identifying Theme with Lengthy Stories

After all of this, my students were finally ready to tackle a longer story and discover the theme. To make it interesting (and a little more engaging – I try to add in a small amount of novelty anytime I can), I also gave them an interactive notebook to go with the story. The students read a story from my Teaching Theme Unit, answered the question about theme, and then completed the interactive notebook template for their notebooks.

Here is the interactive notebook template that we used. Super simple but the students loved the variety and change from the norm. Click here or on the image below to download the free interactive notebook template for finding theme of a text.

The students did a fabulous job with their first lengthy text! However, I know that if I would have started the unit with long passages instead of the read alouds and task cards, I would not have had so much success.

We finished the week with a few more long passages (There are four lengthier passages in my Theme Unit as well as five others that are about the same length or a little longer than those found on task cards.) Then we finally took a quick assessment to wrap up the skill, which all of my students mastered. I strongly believe my students mastered theme so quickly because of the sequence of instruction and the built-in reteaching with the various theme activities.

My Go-To Resource for Teaching Theme

If you are need of theme activities and stories, this Teaching Theme resource includes the following:

• Teaching Posters and Essential Questions
• Graphic Organizers, Interactive Notebook Template, and Scoring Resources (a Rubric and Student Checklist).
• Three Sets of Passages (Five Short Stories, Four Longer Stories, and Two Paired Stories)
• Theme Task Cards
• Theme Small Group Activities

Click here or on the image below to see the Teaching Theme resource in my TPT store.

What are your favorite activities for teaching theme? Let me know in the comments!