This document outlines an English lesson plan focused on teaching students to identify and understand literary themes using various materials, such as picture books and movies. It includes detailed instructional goals, procedures for activities involving graphic organizers and creative projects like decorating water bottles to represent themes. Assessment criteria are provided to evaluate students' understanding of thematic concepts in literature.

1. English Lesson Plan
Literature Unit 1
1
Lesson plan found at
http://www.scholastic.com/teachers/top_teaching/2011/02/helping-students-grasp-themes-
in-literature
Learning about Theme1
Instructional
Goals and
Objectives
Students will
 Be able to identify theme in a book
 Understand the concept of theme
 Know the difference between theme and plot
Materials  Variety of picture books
 Variety of well known and seen movies (ie Harry Potter, The Lion
King, The Emperor’s New Groove)
 Current Novel reading in class (Pride & Prejudice)
 “Graphic Organizers” worksheets (displayed below)
 “Common Themes in Books” worksheets(displayed below)
 empty water bottles (1 for each student) (disposable)
 construction paper
 scissors
 markers, crayons, colored pencils
 tissue paper
 glue
Procedures To complete this task:
 hand out “Graphic Organizers” and “Common Themes in Books”
worksheets
 Ask the students to read “Common Themes in Books” worksheets
and to look up when they’re finished
 While they are reading the worksheets, hand out a picture book, if not
enough ask them to share
 Place the movies you brought on the SmartBoard and ask the
students to write what themes they think each movie has above the
movie
 Discuss results
 Have them read through the books and make a “THE MEssage”
chart; a t chart, one side having the theme they identified and the
other column saying “prove it” on the top, and have them say why
they think this is a theme
 Discuss results
 Have the students switch books and hand out the “Graphic
Organizers” worksheets
 Have them read the new book and use the worksheets to figure out
the theme
 Discuss results
Project:
 Hand out empty water bottles to each student

2. English Lesson Plan
Literature Unit 2
“Graphic Organizers”
 Have a table at the front of the room with rest of supplies (listed
above)
 Tell the students that the main character in the text wants to convey
their feelings about the message they learned in the novel, otherwise
known as the theme
 Have each student decorate the bottle with drawings and pictures that
relate to the novel
 Have them write a letter from the main characters point of view
 In the letter, the beginning should be the theme, and the end should
have three points that support that theme
 Put the letter in the bottle and put it aside for later
 (maybe next day) Have the students pick a bottle that isn’t theirs and
read the letter inside
 have the students decided whether or not their classmate got it right
 discuss results
Assessment The student is able to:
 know the definition of theme
 identify what a theme is in a book and describe why they picked that
theme
Resources For a list of resources, reference the pictures below.

3. English Lesson Plan
Literature Unit 3
“Common Themes in Books”