Alabama ELA Standard: 4.LF.19.a

Teach your young students to identify the moral or the theme of a story.

So what could you do with a Universal Theme of Conflict? Well, here’s an introduction that will get your students’ brains sweating.

So what could you do with a Universal Theme of Power? Well, here’s an introduction that will get your students’ brains sweating.

Aristotle noted that positive traits and negative traits are often the same thing, but just in different amounts. The right amount is a virtue, but too much or too little and it’s a vice.

Every fantasy story has patterns hiding underneath the magic. Once your students see the elements, they’ll spot them everywhere — and use them in their own writing.

Can someone do the right thing, but for the wrong reason?

How would an economist read Goldilocks? How would they see a rainforest? How would they study the American Revolution?

A typical student narrative includes plot and characters but lacks a larger idea to hold it all together. This is where a lesson on themes comes in…