Activities for Teaching Theme

Activities for teaching theme that support a deep understanding need to be engaging and help students make connections, as this is one of the more complex fictional reading comprehension goals for students to grasp. The progression of teaching theme is important because it is a skill that builds on a deeper understanding of previous skills. These 7 activities have helped me be successful in teaching this complex topic in my classroom.

The more we know about our readers, the better! Before we can do any of this hard work like grasping the concept of theme, students need to be engaged in reading and know about themselves as readers. Read more about and download these 9 FREE engagement activities below to work towards creating lifelong readers in your classroom!

How to Teach Theme to 5th Graders (and other students working on the skill)

A few years ago, when I was teaching 5^th grade, I set out to teach theme through a mini lesson. We read a book, talked about the theme as a class, and then I had students go back to their seats to try out a similar activity on their own. Epic fail. Only about one-fourth of my class understood how to pull the theme out of a book when working independently. 

I was confused. These were easy picture books. And by 5th grade, I assumed that students would know how to find a theme. After that, I began taking anecdotal notes on what I was observing so that I could analyze it all later.

This whole group recording page helped me to quickly understand who was “getting it” and who needed more support. I realized students weren’t clear on the problem in the story, others confused by character traits and a few more understood the character but not in enough depth to be able to grasp the theme.

Teaching Theme in a Differentiated Way

When analyzing, I pulled out a chart from Jennifer Seravallo’s book Understanding Readers to find the skill progression for theme and ideas… Here it is:

1. Plot /setting

2. Understanding character

3. Vocabulary/figurative language

4. Themes/ideas

It made perfect sense. How could I expect my students to understand theme when some of them couldn’t identify the plot? Or when others didn’t have a grasp on the character? Or when a few others didn’t understand phrases and words the author used to help the reader understand this difficult concept. 

Strategy groups were the answer when teaching theme in my classroom. As teachers, we are always told to differentiate and meet students where they are, but finding quality activities that aren’t just busywork can be a challenge. Skill progression can be a better way to differentiate especially with reading comprehension. If you find teaching theme to be challenging in your classroom, follow along on these activities for teaching theme to support ALL of your students and meet them where they are on this difficult skill.

Fun Activities for Teaching Theme

Remember to think about the skill progression (setting/plot-character-vocabulary/figurative language-theme/ideas).

1- Character study

If students are struggling to understand theme, focus in on a main character. Students can think about feelings, traits, and the plot to evaluate what the character is going through. Asking students to put themselves in a character’s shoes and think like him or her may help them to gain these understandings. 

A character study is a great way for students to gather the details that help them think about lessons learned in any particular story; aka, the theme. Here is a character study that I used in my classroom that walks through each of these steps.

2- Theme card picture book match

This activity is fun for students because they get the chance to read many of the picture books they grew up loving.

First, create a basket with picture books with easily identifiable themes. I choose books that were popular in K-2. These are usually familiar, have simple plot lines, and hopefully bring back positive reading memories.

Next, write note cards with a theme from each book and put them in a Ziploc bag. I like to add a few extra themes to make it a little more challenging. You can add a description or example of each theme to support students or even to differentiate. Add this Ziploc bag of theme cards to the basket.

Then, students will read the book alone, with a partner or group. Afterwards, they’ll practice summarizing the book. Then, they’ll use details from the summary to consider what the character learned to identify the theme. Rinse and repeat. You can make multiple baskets with 2-3 books and different theme cards to make this go a little faster.

3- Chalk Talk

A chalk talk is a thinking routine from Harvard’s Project Zero. It is an open-ended way to get students thinking and respond to questions or prompts in a silent activity. 

First, tape some chart paper in a few places around the classroom. Add different types of writing to each chart paper. These can be poems, script/reader’s theater of a fiction story, a few pages from a picture book, or a comic.

Next, students will all move around the room quietly with sticky notes and write down a theme they notice from each piece. Make sure to have them include evidence or details to support their thinking. They’ll post this sticky to the chart paper once they finish and move on to another piece. This can be done as rotations or move at your own pace. 

This is a great time to walk around with an anecdotal notes form to write down your observations. It may also be helpful to move with students that you know are struggling so that you can have quiet discussions or only have them respond to a few. 

Afterwards, have a whole class discussion each piece. Discuss details and themes that came out of each piece. Be sure to note the text evidence that helped students to infer their ideas.

4- Theme collage

This can be done in many ways. I give students a piece of paper with a theme right in the middle of the paper. They can choose to make a web or draw pictures and write words around the picture that represent the theme. The pictures and words are details that help them understand the theme. These details could all be plot lines in stories. This is important to point out to students.

This is a great chance to allow your students to show their artistic ability, so be creative! I get out magazines, allow watercolor, markers, flair pens, etc. All craft supplies are available with this activity. It is very open ended so that students have the chance to be creative. 

Some students may need examples of the theme they chose, so I take them to the class library and hand them familiar picture books we’ve read as a class that contain that theme. This gives them a starting point for ideas. It can also be done as a group project if students need more support or if you want to work on collaboration skills in your classroom. 

If students are still struggling with these supports, they may not be ready to unpack theme yet. It may be helpful to have them start with a plot or character collage from a familiar book. These supports will help them continue on their own individualized learning progression.

5- Reading lyrics

Choose a popular, appropriate song for your students’ age. You’ll want the first song or two to have a more predictable theme or message. Give every student a copy of the lyrics. 

Play the song in class so students can gather a feeling of the mood of the song. After the song is over, talk about the mood. Relay to students that the mood is related to the author’s craft and what the artist is trying to portray, just as authors do in books.

After talking about the mood, discuss the theme and what message the author is trying to get across in his or her song. Students can write down what they are thinking and then highlight details that support the theme they have identified. Afterward, have a whole class discussion about possible themes and details. Try with different types of songs so that students can relate music to theme! This is a student favorite with activities for teaching theme.

6- Theme jots

These are one of my favorite activities for teaching theme. They are quick, take place during independent reading time and give valuable information for the teacher. Give students theme-related questions or prompts to answer as they are reading independently. They can answer these questions/prompts with details by recording the text evidence on a sticky note and placing in their book. This can a gradual process while students are reading independently, where they track their thinking throughout but might not actually realize the theme until the book ends. 

I like to use pre-made sticky notes with questions/prompts already on them, but it does require some prep to print the questions on all of the sticky notes. I love doing it this way so that I can use their sticky notes to target the types of questions that they may need help with. It is great to use during book clubs, conferring one on one with students and can be used as an tool for formative or summative assessment. If you’re looking for some theme related stop and jot sticky notes already made, you can grab these now!

Another alternative is writing a new question or prompt on the board each day while studying theme for students to respond to on a sticky. They can number the stickies with the questions that you write on the board so that you can connect the prompt to their response.

7- Act it Out!

Find reader’s theaters or other play scripts for students to read in a group. They can all take on the role of a different character. After reading through the script, the group must decide on the theme in the script. Once they decide, they need to write down or highlight the evidence from the script that made them come to that conclusion. Share with the class at the end OR have groups practice performing their script for the class to guess the theme. For another twist, use different versions of the same story, like the 3 Little Pigs or Cinderella. Different themes may emerge! 

As an alternative, give students a theme card and ask them to write a script to portray that theme. This is a more challenging task but may be great for a group that needs some extra enrichment. You may need to tell them how many details need to be evidenced to support the theme they are trying to portray.

Assessment Ideas for Teaching Theme

Use formative assessment along the way in the form of anecdotal notes or other work samples that you are collecting. This will help allow for reteaching and using the skill progression for students that may need extra support along the way. 

For a summative assessment, fiction theme questions with a passage, poem, script, or excerpt from a book are all easy, minimal-prep ways to assess students at the end of a unit. Here are some theme related questions to give you a head start!

But WAIT! Here are a Few Other Ideas and Activities to Teach Theme

There are so many other ideas and activities for teaching theme in the classroom, but here are a few more to help cover a variety of standards.

• Comparing and contrasting themes- Use venn diagrams to compare and contrast different themes. Try putting examples like excited and happy together (similar) and also happy and mad (opposites) to help students to think about all types of themes.
• Discuss social issues- This is an important one! Discuss social issues as a whole class and talk about themes that students see in these issues. Ask for evidence or reasons why that theme could be emerging. This is definitely important to talk about as a whole group as a teacher may need to help facilitate tricky conversation in an equitable way.
• Track book clubs- Book clubs are student favorites! Choose fiction books for students. Give stopping points throughout the book for students to track the theme either on a timeline or on sticky notes. At the end of the book, have the club discuss the evidence and conclude on a general theme from the book. They can create a theme poster as a group and record all of the evidence on the poster in the form of pictures, words and other creative ways to display text evidence.

Approach activities for teaching theme from a different angle this year by differentiating with skill progressions. Try out a strategy group and let me know how it goes!