Note Taking

Taking notes is an important step to reading critically.  Active reading is a skill you need to develop on your way to post secondary studies.  Please take a moment to read  "The Best Ways to Take Notes so You Actually Remember Information" - lifehacker.com if you would like more information on some of the ideas presented in the Teacher Tools document.

Theme

The theme is an understanding about life that the writer wishes to share with the reader. The theme is usually closely tied to the change a character undergoes in the story, or is something the character learns as a result of the situations that occur in the story.  It is the meaning or purpose of the story.

Theme

The theme is a general statement about life or human experience that an author makes through the specific events in his work.

It is the central insight in a work of fiction.

The story writer is an observer of life and an interpreter of it.

General questions to ask

What insights into life does the story reveal?

What view of life does the story give?

The theme is discovered by asking

How did the main character change and what has he/she learned?

What is the conflict of the story and what is its outcome?

Is the title a clue to understanding the meaning of the story?

Principles for discovering theme

Theme must be expressed in the form of a statement, with subject and predicate.

Theme must be stated as a generalisation about life, not about a specific character in a story.  It makes statements about all humans.

Theme should not be reduced to some familiar saying or cliché. For example: You can't teach an old dog new tricks. Or, truth vs falsehood.

Theme is the central and unifying concept of the story. All incidents must refer back to the statement of theme and not contradict it.

Your theme statement should be 1 - 2 sentences maximum.

Great Book Lists

Sometimes you want to read a classic, or maybe you want to read a classic from your culture or a culture you are interested in.

Robert Teeter has been collecting these sorts of lists.  But if you want to know what Bloom thinks about the Canon... I'd probably start in the Chaotic Age.