Theme - By Julie Jaeger
Transcript
| 00:02 | Hey , can you explain things to me ? Sure | |
| 00:07 | . Being able to find a theme is really important | |
| 00:11 | . First , do you know what theme means ? | |
| 00:14 | Well , I know it is a message about life | |
| 00:19 | , and I know that it is the message that | |
| 00:20 | the author wants you to understand . It is a | |
| 00:26 | truth or insight about people or life that the author | |
| 00:29 | wants the reader to understand . That is right . | |
| 00:35 | But don't forget that it is not just about the | |
| 00:37 | characters or the story itself . What does that mean | |
| 00:44 | ? It means that a team needs to be universal | |
| 00:47 | . It has to be able to work for another | |
| 00:48 | story or book . It has to be abstract . | |
| 00:55 | It has to be an idea that applies to me | |
| 00:57 | . To you , To anyone . Can you give | |
| 01:02 | me an example ? Okay , let's use Finding Nemo | |
| 01:07 | . You know that story ? Yes . What would | |
| 01:11 | you say that story is about ? I would say | |
| 01:16 | that it is about Mino and his friends finding their | |
| 01:18 | way home . That is true . But that cannot | |
| 01:23 | be the theme because it has the characters and part | |
| 01:26 | of the plot in it . The theme has to | |
| 01:32 | be more general so that it can apply to any | |
| 01:34 | story . So would the theme be Friendship that is | |
| 01:40 | general and any starry could be about friendship . That | |
| 01:45 | is a great point . Friendship is general , but | |
| 01:48 | a theme cannot just be one word . It has | |
| 01:51 | to be a whole message . Finding Nemo is about | |
| 01:56 | friendship , so you could say that friendship is the | |
| 01:58 | subject or topic of the story . What do you | |
| 02:03 | mean by subject or topic ? The subject or topic | |
| 02:08 | is one word that can apply to a story . | |
| 02:10 | It is usually an abstract noun , so you cannot | |
| 02:15 | use that for the theme . Then why bother figuring | |
| 02:18 | out the topic ? Well , when you have identified | |
| 02:23 | the topic , you can use that to help you | |
| 02:25 | come up with a theme statement . How do you | |
| 02:30 | do that ? Let's use Finding Nemo again . Since | |
| 02:36 | we know the topic is friendship , we can use | |
| 02:38 | that to start working on a theme statement . I | |
| 02:43 | need to figure out how friendship helped the characters in | |
| 02:46 | the story , right ? Exactly how did friendship helped | |
| 02:52 | the characters grow on change ? Well , friendship helped | |
| 02:56 | Nemo find his way back to his family that made | |
| 02:59 | him happy . Good . Now you have to make | |
| 03:03 | it into a general statement about life . You have | |
| 03:07 | to take out the characters and plot . It has | |
| 03:10 | to be able to be applied to a different story | |
| 03:12 | and still make sense . Hum like friendship can make | |
| 03:19 | you happy or wait . Friendship can lead to happiness | |
| 03:23 | . That is really good . Let's check it . | |
| 03:27 | Does it mention a character ? No . Does it | |
| 03:32 | talk about plot ? No . Could you say that | |
| 03:36 | it is true for another story ? I think so | |
| 03:41 | . I think you can use the same theme statement | |
| 03:44 | for Toy Story that follows all the rules . So | |
| 03:49 | I think you have a good theme statement . Now | |
| 03:54 | let's go work on another one . |
Summarizer
DESCRIPTION:
Designed to teach how to write a theme statement. Addresses the idea of subject or topic vs. theme, and keeping plot and character out of the statement. - created at http://goanimate.com/
OVERVIEW:
Theme is a free educational video by Julie Jaeger.It helps students in grades 3.
This page not only allows students and teachers view Theme but also find engaging Sample Questions, Apps, Pins, Worksheets, Books related to the following topics.
GRADES:
3
STANDARDS:
