Students now have a better understanding of the various characters in the short story or book. Students can now deepen their understanding of the work at hand by analyzing the most important themes of the book and how the character would relate to those themes based on their previous work.
Aim: Using themes to deepen understanding of the chosen essay topic
Activity: Using themes to relate to a story
Level: Young Learners - upper intermediate
Outline:
- Choose a short story or book which will be the basis of individual essays, or essays written in small groups.
- Put a list of the main characters on the board.
- Give students the handout with a number of themes that might be included in the source you are using as a basis for the essay.
- Ask students to choose five of the themes from the list. Students should then write down some ideas about how these themes affect a character of their choosing.
- Get students into small groups of students who have chosen the same character. Students should discuss their choice of themes, answers and explain their reasoning to each other.
- Do a class session talking about the variety of responses, write down a broad selection of answers to later photocopy and give to the students to be used as notes when writing an essay.
Choose five of the themes from the list that you think is important to in your story. Choose one of the main characters and write down some ideas of how your character relates to each of the themes you choose:
Writers' Workshop - Lesson 1 - Basic Essay Structure
Writers' Workshop - Lesson 2 - Developing a Character Analysis
Writers' Workshop - Lesson 3 - Using Themes to Relate to a Story
Writers' Workshop - Lesson 4 - Getting Ideas Organized
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