Goal. Understanding Themes and Ideas. Why is this goal important?

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1 Goal 7 Supporting Comprehension in Fiction Understanding Themes and Ideas Why is this goal important? Stories are rich with issues and ideas, many of which don t always jump off the page at you. It takes imagination, inference, determining importance, and ability to synthesize all that happens in a story to try to understand the ideas that are hiding. As Stephanie Harvey and Anne Goudvis (2000) explain, Themes in books are the underlying ideas, morals, or lessons that give the story its texture, depth, and meaning. The themes are rarely written out in the story. We infer themes. Themes often make us feel angry, sad, guilty, joyful, frightened. We tell kids that we are likely to feel themes in our gut (109). Although some may argue that the text has a theme, which the author intended, and it s the reader s job to figure it out, I m a bit more in literary theorist Rosenblatt s (1978) camp when it comes to interpreting themes. I think that interpretation needs to be rooted in the details of the text, but that it s really also about the interaction the 190 THE READING STRATEGIES BOOK 190 serravallo book.indb 190 4/12/15 8:10 PM

2 reader has with the text. This means that two different readers reading the same story may interpret theme differently, because the prior knowledge and experiences that each of them has is unique. Why is it important to teach children to think about themes and ideas and symbolism? When children are taught to think with more depth about the reading, that s when the reading really begins to matter. It s no longer about noticing the next event on the plot line, it becomes about letting stories help us see our world, feel something, question our own beliefs. Although at early elementary levels, themes are often easily accessible ( Friends are important ), as students progress through more challenging texts, the themes often get to be more and more like life itself multidimensional, contradictory, messy. Symbolism starts to appear in some stories around levels P/Q, and at these levels students can understand more of the text when they consider how the people, places, or objects represent something beyond their physical description. Put simply, although thinking deeply about text may be an enjoyable part of reading literature, it s also fair to say that without understanding themes, ideas, symbolism, or social issues that show up in the text, it could be that you misunderstand or at the very least miss a lot of what the story is about. How do I know if this goal is right for my student? As with the other comprehension goals, it s important that you keep in mind the intersection between the task (determining theme or interpreting symbols) and the text (reading level) in mind when you re assessing your students. For example, in many primary-level texts, or up until about level K/L, a lesson is clearly connected to what the character learns and it is sometimes even explicitly stated in the text. Teachers can look to see if children know where to look, and if they can repeat the theme in the same language the author uses. By levels children typically read in late second and throughout third grade (M P), it s more likely that the theme isn t explicit, and readers would need to infer to figure it out. In these more challenging texts, I look to see if students can name a theme as a sentence (i.e., You can create your own family by surrounding yourself with people who love you ) rather than just a single word (i.e., Family ). Beginning around levels R/S, texts often have multiple themes, and I might ask a student What else? or Do you have any other ideas? to see if they are picking up on more than just the most dominant theme. 191

3 At all levels, I think it s important to consider whether the child s interpretation encompasses all or most of the story, or if the student is just picking up on something that happened on one page or in one scene (themes that take into account the whole book show deeper understanding). With children reading at early fourth-grade levels (P/Q), I would also ask about symbolism and look to see whether they are able to articulate how a concrete object represents an abstract idea (Fountas and Pinnell 2010b; Serravallo 2012). To assess how students understand themes and ideas, I find it helpful to ask students to answer questions in an independent-level text, either during conferences, in a read-aloud, or in a text they read silently. Some questions that I tend to use include: What do you think this story is really about? What is a message/lesson/theme you take away from this story? What did you learn about from reading this story? What might the symbolize? It is likely that you aren t assessing just themes and ideas, but rather that this is part of a more holistic assessment of fiction comprehension. Therefore, I would choose this goal for a student once the student has demonstrated an ability to understand plot and setting, character, and vocabulary with relative consistency and when the student is ready to do more deep, critical thinking about his or her stories. 192 THE READING STRATEGIES BOOK

4 Strategies for Understanding Themes and Ideas at a Glance Strategy Levels Genres/ Text Types Skills 7.1 Notice a Pattern and Give Advice D K Patterned book with characters Inferring, 7.2 The Difference Between Plot and Theme G and above Fiction Inferring, determining importance 7.3 We Can Learn (and Give Advice) Based on How Characters Treat Each Other I and above Fiction Inferring, determining importance 7.4 What Can Characters Teach Us? J and above Fiction Inferring, determining importance 7.5 Look Out for What Characters Teach Each Other J and above Fiction Inferring, determining importance 7.6 What Are You Left With? J and above Fiction Inferring, determining importance 7.7 Mistakes Can Lead to Lessons J and above Fiction Inferring, determining importance 7.8 Feelings Help Us Learn J and above Fiction Inferring, determining Importance 7.9 Compare Lessons Across Books in a Series J and above Fiction Inferring, determining importance, comparing and contrasting 7.10 Actions, Outcomes, Response J and above Fiction Inferring, determining importance, 7.11 Book-to-Book Connections K and above Fiction Inferring, 7.12 Dig Deeper to Find a Story s Topics K and above Fiction Inferring, determining importance, 7.13 From Seed to Theme K and above Fiction Inferring, interpreting 7.14 Find Clues About Theme in the Blurb K and above Fiction Inferring, determining importance, 7.15 The Real World in My Book N and above Fiction Inferring, determining importance 7.16 Stories Teach Us About Life Issues N and above Fiction Inferring, determining importance 7.17 Readers Ask Themselves Questions N and above Fiction Inferring, determining importance 7.18 Character Change Can Reveal Lessons N and above Fiction Inferring, determining importance 7.19 Symbols Repeat N and above Fiction Inferring, determining importance 7.20 Respond to Issues That Repeat N and above Fiction Inferring, determining importance 7.21 Aha Moment N and above Fiction Inferring,, determining importance 7.22 Identifiers, Identity, and Ideas Q and above Fiction Inferring, determining importance 7.23 Secondary Sages Q and above Fiction Inferring, determining importance 7.24 Titles Can Be Telling R and above Fiction Inferring, determining importance 193

5 7.14 Find Clues About Theme in the Blurb Strategy Read the back cover blurb. If you read it before reading the story, you might have a hunch about what theme or two might be in the story. If you read it after or while reading, you can think about what happens in the story and how the blurb connects. Then ask yourself, What does this story teach me? Lesson Language Back cover blurbs often give the reader a gist of the story just enough to entice us to really want to read it and find out what will happen. Listen to this blurb from the back of Julian s Glorious Summer (Cameron 1987): Bicycles shiny, whizzing, wobbly bicycles scare Julian more than lions or tigers. But how can he tell that to his best friend, Gloria? She can already ride with no hands. So instead of telling the truth, Julian makes up a little fib. And he almost gets away with it until his little fib backfires and Julian finds himself in the biggest, most confounding fix ever. Doesn t that sound like a great story? It makes me want to read it to find out what the biggest fix ever is going to be. But even before reading, I have a hunch that something about the importance of being honest with your friends might come up in this story. I got that hint because I know that he s struggling with telling Gloria a fib that ends up backfiring, which means it s going to be a problem for him and we know that problems are often also clues to the lessons characters learn. Who is this for? Levels K and above Genre / Text Type fiction skills inferring, determining importance, Prompts Read the blurb What do you think the character might learn? What might a problem in the story be? Based on the problem, what might the lesson be? Think about how the blurb connects to the whole story you read. What s most important? Text excerpt from Pinky and Rex and the Bully (Howe 1996). 207