TEACHING THEME IN SHORT STORIES

 

 

Theme can be difficult for students to pick up on for students new to the idea. Often times students get mixed up because they think a smaller plot to the story is the main point the author is trying to get across. To help students with this concept, I suggest looking at short stories instead of a full novel, as a novel has a lot of smaller plots that can make students confused on one main purpose. While looking at the poetry boxes, I came up with a project based idea that would help students learn theme when working with short stories. Let me know what you think!

 

THE LESSON

 

First things first, you have to teach students what theme is! Click here to find a powerpoint that goes through theme.

Moving on, you know how students sometimes create dioramas to show a specific scene or the overall general idea of a text? Well, my idea sparked from this. Typically speaking a diorama is created in a shoebox and gives a very general idea of what a book is about. The lesson I have created would ask students to create a "diorama" of sorts, but in an Altoid box. Why an Altoid box, you ask? Well, I want students to give me a very specific theme, not the overall plot of the story. This will allow them a very small amount of space which will make them think carefully about what they want to put in the box.

 

This will likely have to be a project that has to be completed at home, but I would initiate the process in class. In my class, one of the short stories we read was Triffles, so as an example, I would read Triffles out loud to my class. While we were reading, I would ask students to fill out this version of Freytag's Pyramid:

This is one of the versions I really like, but there are hundreds on the internet to choose from. This would benefit the students because it would help them remember the story and would give them a step-by-step of what the story is about.

 

 

I would ask students to take this home and think of what they think the theme might be. The next day in class we would discuss their answers. At this point I would allow them to pick a short story to create a pyramid on and to create their box. I could not find any examples of theme represented in Altoid boxes, but I found items that would give students an idea of what they would create. These boxes were made by artists to display an idea, but the same could be done for theme. Students would be asked to create a box like this, with one sentence within to summarize the theme of the story they found. I think this is a fun way for students to creatively show the theme they found within the story while also challenging them to find new ways to convey this theme!

 

(P.S. I would likely have Altoid boxes and supplies on hand so students could stay after school one evening and work on these if they needed additional help or did not have the supplies needed at home!)