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Arizona ELA Standard: 5.RL.2

Determine a theme of a story, drama, or poem from details of the text; include how characters in story or drama respond to challenges, how the speaker in a poem reflects upon a topic, and a summary of the text.

Summarize In Haiku: Power

Summarize In Haiku: Power

Can your students fit a whole story into seventeen syllables? Now do it from inside a character’s head. Then once more, following the power.

Shrinking A Summary

Shrinking A Summary

Can your students shrink a whole story down to one sentence? Every cut reveals what is truly essential.

Identifying A Story’s Theme

Identifying A Story’s Theme

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

A Character’s Playlist

A Character’s Playlist

What playlist of songs best goes with a character’s change over time?

Stories with the Same Problems and Solutions

Stories with the Same Problems and Solutions

Have you ever noticed that some stories have awfully similar problems? What if we looked for the most unusual way of solving a repeating problem?

Introducing Universal Theme of Conflict

Introducing Universal Theme of Conflict

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

Charge of the Light Brigade – Chess Variant

Charge of the Light Brigade – Chess Variant

What if one side played with THREE QUEENS and the other had SEVEN KNIGHTS!? What if?

Writing Sample: A Christmas Carol (Cold)

Writing Sample: A Christmas Carol (Cold)

A passage from White Fang to use as a mentor text, discussion starter, or writing prompt.

Characters Dressed as Other Characters for Halloween

Characters Dressed as Other Characters for Halloween

What if one character dressed up as another for Halloween? Would the Cat in the Hat pick Captain Jack Sparrow, because they’re both chaotic yet good-natured people? Would Elsa dress up as The Ice King since they are both lonely?

Virtue or Vice?

Virtue or Vice?

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.

Writing Sample: The Fall of the House of Usher

Writing Sample: The Fall of the House of Usher

A passage from “The Fall of the House of Usher” to use as a mentor text, discussion starter, or writing prompt.

The Personalities of Rocks

The Personalities of Rocks

What would an igneous rock be like? Would it get along with a sedimentary rock? Could they handle the hot personality of a metamorphic rock?

Content Imperatives: Convergence

Content Imperatives: Convergence

Add complexity by considering how multiple factors 🔄 Converge within one topic.

Depth and Complexity: 🌻 Details

Depth and Complexity: 🌻 Details

Get kids focusing on the small, but essential, details of a topic.

Elements of The Fantasy Genre

Elements of The Fantasy Genre

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.

Motivation and Moral Development

Motivation and Moral Development

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

Romeo and Juliet Summary

Romeo and Juliet Summary

Romeo and Juliet in just about five minutes.

Twelfth Night Summary

Twelfth Night Summary

An animated summary of Shakespeare’s utterly ridiculous “Twelfth Night.”

Hamlet Summary

Hamlet Summary

It’s Hamlet in just about five minutes!

A Midsummer Night’s Dream

A Midsummer Night’s Dream

Nothing could possibly go wrong with a love potion on the loose!

Writing Summaries in Haiku

Writing Summaries in Haiku

Let’s write a summary. A very short summary. With VERY strict rules.

Better Stories Part 3: Literary Themes

Better Stories Part 3: Literary Themes

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…