Session 2: Reading Closely to Develop Themes - PowerPoint Presentation

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Session 2: Reading Closely to Develop Themes

Don’t forget that when you begin writing, it is important to pause just a bit, and rethink your direction.

Think about the themes you’ve started to follow in the texts you are reading, revisit your text with that theme in mind. You’ll no doubt see things that you didn’t the first time.

Themes evolve and change through the course of the text and across a lifetime.Slide2

Teaching Point

Today I am going to teach you that literary essayists dig deep into the texts they are writing about, reading critical scenes closely to look for nuance and detail, and then they use writing to say what they think the text is really saying. This is what’s entailed in writing about a theme-reading closely to see how your thinking about the theme might develop.Slide3

How to Write a Thematic Essay

Literary essayists reread the text with theme in hand, noting critical scenes in which the theme is especially evident, and revising or adding to their thinking about the theme as they go.

Yesterday we began looking at your anchor chart “How to Write a Thematic Essay”

Today we are going to look at the next step: Go back and reread closely to see how the theme works in certain critical scenes.Slide4

Let’s look at our short story…

In “All Summer in a Day,” we picked out the theme: jealousy hurts people.

Let’s pick out a few scenes that are critical scenes for that idea. What scenes or moments would you call critical scenes for the idea that jealousy hurts people?

DiscussSlide5

Themes Grow and Change

So the theme we’ve chosen is good, but it certainly isn’t great.

Let’s look at the scene where they are deciding to lock Margot up. It’s when William, the antagonist in the story, suggests that they should do it…

The biggest crime of all was that she had come here only five years ago from Earth, and she remembered the sun and the way the sun was and the sky was when she was four in Ohio. And they, they had been on Venus all their lives, and they had been only two years old when last the sun came out and had long since forgotten the color and heat of it and the way it really was. But Margot remembered.Slide6

Did you notice?

That the text says that Margot’s past on Earth is a crime?

It’s like the other children are so jealous that they see Margot as doing something bad to them, like stealing, or hurting them. But all she did was remember something they have forgotten. She can’t help it, she can’t help who she is.

This confirms that our first theme we pulled out isn’t the best. Take a look at my thoughts in the writing below. I’m trying to push myself to connect the idea I am having with details I have pulled from the text.

At first I thought the theme was that jealousy hurts people, but I think it is more than that. The kids see Margot’s memory of the sun as almost a crime against them, like she is doing this to them.Slide7

If I get stuck…

Prompts to push writers to speculate about themes in a text

One theory is…

On the other hand perhaps…

This is convincing because, for example…

One example of this is…

This illustrates…

This is significant because…

Consequently…Slide8

I used a strategy to keep writing

Consequently, their jealousy is so big and so painful that they can’t see that Margot is just a little kid who lived on Earth longer. This is significant, because their jealousy makes it so they can’t see anything but their own hurt. Maybe that is something the text is teaching us too-that jealousy makes you blind to other people? Or maybe it is that jealousy makes you selfish

?

***I like how the theme evolved from “jealousy can hurt people” to “jealousy can make you selfish and blind to other people”

Did you notice that our theme is no longer a one word description? Here are some more examples of good themes:

Loneliness can tend to show itself when you are with other people.

People are not always what you at first perceive them to be.

If it looks like people have changed, sometimes it is really our perception of them that has changed.

Even characters who are villains have likeable qualities

Your flaws can lead to great and hopeful changes

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Did you see what I did? First I chose a few scenes that were critical to the idea I was analyzing. Then I reread one scene closely, thinking about how the theme worked in this one episode. And then, of course, I wrote long about my thinking in hopes that my thinking would go even further.Slide9

With your partner…

Take a moment to choose some scenes that you think are important to a theme that you think you want to analyze. You can choose different scenes-

you will need 2-3

that fit with the theme you each want to study; jot down the page numbers of those scenes in your notebook.

Think of a scene where the emotions are really strong around an issue/problem

Look for a scene where the issue/problem is created (where it all begins)

Reread the scenes. Then write a half page analysis in your Google Doc, like you saw me do earlier in the lesson. When you are finished, discuss with your partner about how your theme thinking has changed.

If you have extra time, try writing another analysis about the theme(s) of your text.