10 English – What are Themes? – Preparation for reading ‘The Outsiders’

A lesson designed to be taught at the end of a term to bridge to the next term’s unit (reading ‘The Outsiders’). I get my students to copy the underlined portions of text from the slides including the definition of theme. I have used examples from popular culture texts including Harry Potter, The Hunger Games and Lord of the Rings to explain themes like loyalty and bravery. There are tips about how to identify themes in a text. There are opportunities to check for understanding e.g. name a movie that matches the themes listed on the slide. There is an image showing common themes in literature. We then zoomed into key themes within The Outsiders (we focussed on 4 themes). This segued into a more in-dept exploration of the first theme: loyalty. Information is provided about loyalty in relationships, loyalty in groups and communities, loyalty in morality and principles, loyalty in literature and media & loyalty as a virtue. Finally, we watched an extract of The Hunger Games and answered questions.