Strategies to Determine Theme

What is a theme?

Why is it important to learn theme?

Which skill is needed to determine a story's theme?

Which of the following is a strategy readers should use to identify theme?

Is a theme of a story an opinion or subject?

A Lion lay asleep in the forest, his great head resting on his paws. A timid little Mouse came upon him unexpectedly, and in her fright and haste to get away, ran across the Lion’s nose. Roused from his nap, the Lion laid his huge paw angrily on the tiny creature to kill her. “Spare me!” begged the poor Mouse. “Please let me go and some day I will surely repay you.” The Lion was much amused to think that a Mouse could ever help him. But he was generous and finally let the Mouse go. Some days later, while stalking his prey in the forest, the Lion was caught in the toils of a hunter’s net. Unable to free himself, he filled the forest with his angry roaring. The Mouse knew the voice and quickly found the Lion struggling in the net. Running to one of the great ropes that bound him, she gnawed it until it parted, and soon the Lion was free. “You laughed when I said I would repay you,” said the Mouse. “Now you see that even a Mouse can help a Lion.”

One bright day in late autumn a family of Ants were bustling about in the warm sunshine, drying out the grain they had stored up during the summer, when a starving Grasshopper, his fiddle under his arm, came up and humbly begged for a bite to eat. "What!" cried the Ants in surprise, "haven't you stored anything away for the winter? What in the world were you doing all last summer?" "I didn't have time to store up any food," whined the Grasshopper; "I was so busy making music that before I knew it the summer was gone." The Ants shrugged their shoulders in disgust. "Making music, were you?" they cried. "Very well; now dance!" And they turned their backs on the Grasshopper and went on with their work.

One day a countryman going to the nest of his Goose found there an egg all yellow and glittering. When he took it up it was as heavy as lead and he was going to throw it away, because he thought a trick had been played upon him. But he took it home on second thoughts, and soon found to his delight that it was an egg of pure gold. Every morning the same thing occurred, and he soon became rich by selling his eggs. As he grew rich, he grew greedy; and thinking to get at once all the gold the Goose could give, he killed it. Upon butchering the bird, he opened it only to find — nothing. What is the theme of the fable?

At school, James was always getting in trouble. "Did you behave today?" his mother would ask every day after she picked him up from school. "Of course I did," he would reply, but then his teacher would walk over and ask if she could have a word with his mother. "Jaaames," she would groan after talking to the teacher, "What were you thinking?" and she would spend the rest of the walk home lecturing him on his poor behavior. The truth was, James was a very well-behaved student; his temper and consistent bad luck just got in the way. Yesterday, his teacher had gotten mad at him for talking in class, when it was really Mila, who sat next to him, that had been talking. However, instead of explaining the situation calmly, James had immediately started yelling at his teacher for accusing the wrong person, which got him sent to the principal's office. The day before that, John White had passed a note in class and signed it with his initials: JW. Unfortunately, James' last name, Watson, also started with a W. The teacher intercepted the note, and, forgetting that there were two students with the same initials in her class, told James that he would be skipping recess that day. Once again, James lost his temper, but this time, he yelled at John for not saying anything as well as the teacher. Now his teacher understood that she had accused the wrong person, but she made James stay inside anyway for shouting. On it went, with one day of bad luck and temper after another, and lectures from his mother at the end of each day. Then one day, when his mother asked if he had behaved that day, she was surprised with his response. "Ask Ms. Peters," he said, so she went up to his teacher and asked. When they finished talking, she walked back over to James with the most astonished look on her face. "Your teacher says that you seem to have changed overnight. What happened?" "I kept my temper," James replied with a smile, then raced ahead towards home. What is the theme of the story?