The Importance of Theme and Literary Analysis

Teaching theme is one of the most important concepts I teach in my class. Themes are something that students have learned before but this unit is the first time that they will have to apply literary analysis to theme in a formal essay. I find that students grapple with this idea of analysis so I start with the basics and break it down into manageable parts.  When they are tasked with analyzing a harder piece, they have the tools and the confidence to dive in.

“The Sneetches” Mentor Text

“The Sneetches” is a tale of Star Bellied Sneetches who exclude the Plain Bellied Sneetches. However, when Sylvester McMonkey McBean shows up in a peculiar machine, he changes the Sneetches so they look alike. These sneetches then spent the afternoon spending money trying to change themselves to be different. However, after all the money is gone, the sneetches wise up and realize that they are not so different after all.

This text allows students to hear a children’s story, which high schoolers love because it has been so long since they sat down and heard a story read to them. The great thing about Dr. Seuss is that in his rhythmic way, he makes his message so clear that even an unsure student can see a lesson that can be learned.

“The Sneetches” First Reading

First, we define what a theme is so that students know what the purpose for today’s activity. After the students know this lesson, they are given their own version of the text so that they can work on their annotation skills. Their first purpose for reading is to focus on highlighting the following elements: the main characters, the main conflict, the first solutions, and then the final lasting solution. Each time the students read, giving them a purpose helps the students to focus as they read and learn what important details should be highlighted and what can be omitted. After they have their purpose, the students cozy up around me and I read in my best storytelling voice “The Sneetches” to them. If you don’t want to read the story on your own, you can play this “The Sneetches” Youtube video.

After the first reading of “The Sneetches”, students then download “The Sneetches” theme handout that I have created for them. The first step after reading is to give the surface story of “The Sneetches”. This task is two-fold: the students show that they have read and comprehend the text and practice their summarizing skills which is a key component of their standardized tests.

Students then are asked to share the “real” story of the text. Here I prompt them to omit all mentions of the main characters and plot points and go deeper into what Dr. Seuss is really saying. Without calling it analysis or even theme, my students are tackling these major skills.

Theme Subject vs. Theme Statements

Once we have shared out our answers to the surface story and the real story of “The Sneetches”, we start to work on creating theme. We first take a pause and have a discussion about the difference in theme statements and theme subjects. Students believe that one word answers or phrases are themes such as courage, discrimination, or loss of innocence. However, these are called theme subjects and are the basis for theme statements. We even practice identifying theme subjects and theme statements to make sure we understand the difference.

I then have the students get into small groups for the theme section of the handout. Students will think of five theme subjects from “The Sneetches”. Once they have their five theme subjects, they create correlating theme statements for each one. After 15 minutes, the students share out and add their favorite theme statement to their vocabulary chart.

Students are now ready to tackle finding theme in harder texts because I have made teaching theme easy for them.