A Beautiful Mind: Main ideas and supporting details

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

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...

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...

So many themes are expertly woven through Harper Lee's novel, To Kill a Mockingbird. On the first page, scholars will read five themes, selecting an incident and a quote to highlight that theme. On page two, they use chapters 29-31 to...

William Golding's Lord of the Flies is the anchor text for a lesson that teaches readers how to distinguish between a literary topic and a literary theme. Using the provided worksheets, groups first chart some themes and propose a...

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...

Can you name the most important themes in To Kill a Mockingbird? Help your class study seven themes throughout their reading of the classic. They search for examples linking to education, bravery/cowardice, racial prejudice, social class...

In expository writing, it is important to back up claims with evidence and details. Help your class to develop their writing with notes on different types of evidence. Once they have the basics down, practice with a sample thesis and...

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.

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,...