Explore engaging ways to teach theme in secondary ELA classes. From analyzing characters to decoding symbolism, empower your students to uncover the deeper meanings in literature! Teaching Theme | Theme Teaching Activities | How to Teach Theme | Literary Analysis | Middle School Literature | High School Literature | Lessons for Teaching Theme

Understanding the theme of a story can be challenging. Like all human beings, students want to take the easy way out. They read a difficult text and they want “the answer” to magically pop into their heads, without doing any mental stretching to get there. They think that we English teachers will look at any […]

Theme is such an important concept when teaching reading. Students are asked to determine the theme of a text over and over again. However, many students struggle with how to identify the theme. That's why I'm sharing some of my favorite ways to teach theme. You'll find theme lesson ideas, theme activities, and theme passage suggestions to help your students finally figure out how to find theme!

Learn why one-pagers are one of my go-to activities for breaking down complex topics and texts. Understand what they are, why you and your students will love them, and how to implement them in your ELA classroom. I even have the advice to help you tackle the biggest obstacle you’ll encounter with this activity.

An Upper Elementary Collaborative blog written by 13 teachers. Includes teaching ideas and resources for grades 3, 4, and 5.

There’s just something so magical about looking at learning as an adventure, and that’s the exact notion I wanted to highlight in this travel-themed classroom. I worked with the classroom decor that this room already had, so I was able to put together a high school adventure-themed classroom in just one day! When I saw ... Read More about Adventure Themed Classroom: An Eclectic Travel Classroom with Boho Vibes

My most popular post is teaching about Main Idea vs. Theme together. It has changed how students think about main idea and theme statements.

A blog about teaching middle school ELA and math.

This is my 14th year of teaching. Twelve of those years have been spent teaching 6th and 7th graders. And that means that for twelve years, I've been trying to get middle schoolers to wrap