What’s the big idea? Identifying themes in texts
In this article, I take a brief look at supporting children to identify themes in texts.
The National Curriculum asks that children in Key Stage 2 identify and discuss themes and conventions in writing. But what are themes?Themes are not the plot and they are not the genre. Instead, themes are the underlying messages that exist beneath the words written on the page. They are the big ideas that the author is trying to convey to the reader. Note how I say beneath the words written on the page. Themes are not necessarily explicit and they are conveyed by writers through the words and actions of characters as they respond to the situations in which they find themselves. I’ll say it again, beneath the words on the page – it sounds a bit like read between the lines that age old phrase that we use when asking children to infer meaning. And therein lies part of the problem. Identifying the theme in writing requires inference skills and we all know how hard those are to teach.
National Curriculum: Year 5/6 Reading comprehension p.44
When identifying themes in texts, we are asking children to make what are sometimes referred to a ‘global inferences’. These inferences are about ‘getting the gist’ of a text and tend to be made when the text has been completed and the reader is reflecting on the whole text, rather than the more ‘local inferences’ that we make when say connecting a pronoun to a noun whilst reading near-by sentences. The global nature of ‘getting the gist’ is quite a tricky skill. It requires the reader to synthesise, or bring together, multiple pieces of information from across the text to get a sense of the whole. One way we can teach children to do this is through modelled reading where we articulate our thoughts whilst reading aloud. ‘I wonder…’ statements are good for this where you ruminate on the possible reasons for the author choose certain words or to put specific words into the mouth of a character, e.g. I wonder why the author used that word here… I wonder if that idea connects to anything else we’ve read, etc..
Modelled reading can also lead us to articulate our inferential thinking so that children learn how experienced readers begin to dig beneath the words on the page, e.g. Ooo, that word’s making me think x; that phrase leads me to feel y about this story; Oh, I think I’m seeing a connection between this piece of information and z, what do you think? etc.
Sometimes the theme is more apparent in a text than in others. If the main character has learned a moral lesson (e.g. learning that stealing is wrong in The Balaclava Story by George Layton), then that should be relatively easy to identify. As teachers, asking what did George learn about taking other people’s possessions in The Balaclava Story should provide us with an ‘in’ to talk about the theme of the text - stealing is wrong. In other texts, a main character needs to learn to overcome the hand dealt to them by fate so that they learn resilience, how to be brave, how to cope with adversity or how to be positive despite their situation, which may be harder to identify. There are lots of these stories, sometimes we call them books dealing with issues. If I take one I read recently, The Girl with Space in her Heart by Lara Williamson, the protagonist’s parents have recently separated and her mum has a new partner leaving her with a space in her heart where her father once was. The issue is separation but sitting beneath this is a character who learns to cope with her anxieties, to accept that life has changed and to learn to talk about her emotions. These thematic threads may not be so easy to identify as ‘stealing is wrong’ but through scaffolded talk they can be identified.
Some of the most frequently occurring themes in children’s literature are friendship, determination and bravery. These are big ideas and ones inherently bound in notions of emotional intelligence. They are ideas that require an emotional lexicon; something that so many children struggle to access. So how can we help? As I’ve already said, we certainly need to talk about the themes in the books we read and encourage children to identify them. Simply asking, “What’s the theme in this book?” is unlikely to reveal much joy. However, providing children with a range of common themes and asking if any are present in a text is likely to be more successful. Our Primary English Theme Tokens have been produced for just this purpose. These are a collection of common themes in children’s literature for children to colour in and then discuss with friends. There are also spaces for children to add themes they may have identified that are not included in the resource.
After children have used the Theme Tokens, or once they are more confident at identifying themes independently, our Identifying Themes table can be used to help them record the themes they have found beneath the words written on the page.
Excerpt from Cut Out Theme Tokens
The Primary English Cut Out Theme Tokens and Identifying Themes table are included in our Reading Journals Supplementary Pack available in our resources area. This pack includes 11 reading resource sheets to supplement the ideas contained in our KS1 and KS2 Reading Journal Activities.
This article was updated 8.10.20