7th Grade Theme/Textual Evidence

Bell ringer: What types of writing are there?

Theme The theme is a central message in a literary work The moral lesson with in. Often times it is implied and not stated right out. Clues to theme: The title, Conflict within the story, setting, characters, statements and observations, and Symbols.

Example: Possible Interpretation of Theme: Daedalus constructs wings with feathers held together by wax to help his son Icarus and himself escape an island prison. Daedalus warns Icarus not to fly too close to the sun because the sun’s heat could melt the wax. Thrilled by the adventure of flying, Icarus ignores his father’s warning. The wax melts, causing Icarus’s wings to fall apart, and Icarus falls to his death. Possible Interpretation of Theme: Know your limits Defying nature leads to disaster. Ambition can be costly

Video Time!!! Flocabulary!

Textual Evidence Means to use direct information from the text to support your answer or opinion. When we have ideas about what we read, we need to cite Textual Evidence to support our ideas. This is to let the reader know that we are not making things up.

How to: State your answer or Idea Cite what in the text led you to that idea Explain the evidence (How that particular information supports your theory).

Example: year in the United States alone, a new report concludes. Cats kill between 1.4 billion and 3.7 billion birds every year in the United States alone, a new report concludes. That’s nearly a billion more birds — at least — than estimated by some previous studies, Peter Marra told Science News. This research scientist, who works at the Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute in Washington, D.C., led the new study. Any long-term solution will be controversial. Some people propose catching wild cats and neutering them, which means performing minor surgery to make them unable to reproduce. That won’t make them kill fewer animals. But it will slow the increase in number of these natural-born killers. Others people have proposed catching and killing feral cats

Question: What was the author’s purpose in writing this text? Model Answer Question: What was the author’s purpose in writing this text? The author’s purpose was to make people aware that cats killing birds has become a problem and that any solution to the problem will be controversial. Here, the writer answers the question with an idea about the text In the first paragraph, the author points out that, “Cats kill between 1.4 billion and 3.7 billion every year.” Here, the writer includes a direct quote from the text as evidence.

Model Answer-continued Question: What was the author’s purpose in writing this text? The author’s use of that statistic really catches a reader’s eye because they are such big numbers. This shows just how big the problem Here, the writer comments on how the quoted text that was cited as evidence helped form the idea that was stated to the answer Then, in the second paragraph, the author says that there are two controversial ways to solve the problem, by either catching wild cats an performing surgery on them so they can’t reproduce or catching and killing them. Here, the writer paraphrases from the text to give a second piece of evidence.

“Papa’s Parrot”, p.26 in PH

Bell ringer: What is a theme? How do you find the theme? Tuesday Bell ringer: What is a theme? How do you find the theme?

Word Study on page 31 in PH. Re- -ed Prefixes/Suffixes Word Study on page 31 in PH. Re- -ed

1-5 providing textual evidence to support reasoning. p.30 in the PH 1-5 providing textual evidence to support reasoning.

Wednesday Bell ringer: What is a summary? How does writing a summary of a text increase understanding of what is read?

Neutral Objective summary Means- What you have to do Do not put your opinion in the answer. How you feel about the subject does not mater to the reader. Leave it out!!! You must put your emotions to the back and give an unbiased opinion. Pushed Back Neutral What you have to do What you feel like inside

How to Write an Objective Summary Focus on the central ideas from the text •Leave out supporting or minor details • Write only enough to convey the central idea (4-5 sentences maximum) • Organize the information clearly

Thursday Bell Ringer: How does using textual evidence support your claims?

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Bellringer: K-W-L Chart Write down what you know. What you want to know. What you have learned this week.

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