T HEMES AND G ENERALIZATIONS Making Connections to Foster Deeper and More Complex Thinking

P RESENTATION O VERVIEW What is the Themes and Generalizations Strategy (and why use it) How I conducted the initial lesson in my honors class How I modified the lesson for my grade-level classes Extensions of the initial lesson Goals for next year and questions

L ATHROP T ECHNOLOGY M AGNET S CHOOL “Home of the Spartans” Enrollment : 1426 Students Hispanic or Latino 98.1 % Asian 1.2 % White 0.5 % Black or African American 0.1 % Native Hawaiian/Pacific Islander 0.1 % Socioeconomically Disadvantaged 94.5 % English Learners 61.4 % Students with Disabilities 12.2 %

T HEMES AND G ENERALIZATIONS Themes and Generalizations (or Universal Themes and Generalizations) is a GATE strategy that gives deeper meaning by providing a “big idea” to a unit of study or an entire school year. The strategy allows students to make connections throughout their learning and across content areas. This is NOT a lesson on how to teach themes in literature but a strategy to have students begin to use ideas and concepts rather than facts alone.

Theme with Generalization Statements About That Theme T HINK OF IT LIKE THIS : Reading Writing InterpretationCommentary Grammar

T HE T HEMES For this strategy themes are defined as over- arching single words that are: Abstract universal concepts Leads to a higher level thinking A means to focus on essential understandings to create transferable knowledge Examples: Power Change Structure Conflict I have an unanswered question about this later…

T HE G ENERALIZATIONS Within each universal theme are generalizations, statements for which examples can be provided. Working with power as a theme, students could investigate ideas such as: Power can be used or abused Power comes in many forms Power may be seen or unseen

C OMPARISON OF T WO A PPROACHES Topic-Based Integrated Study Tends to focus on facts and information Can promote coverage as a goal Relatively low coherence among subjects Connects subjects at concrete level Allows low level thinking Low transfer potential Concept-based Integrated Study Tends to focus on ideas and principles Promotes understanding as the goal High coherence among subjects Connects subjects as a level of meaning Requires high level thinking High transfer potential

S TANDARDS CA State 2.0 Reading Comprehension (Focus on Informational Materials) Students read and understand grade- level-appropriate material. They describe and connect the essential ideas, arguments, and perspectives of the text by using their knowledge of text structure, organization, and purpose. The selections in Recommended Literature, Kindergarten Through Grade Twelve illustrate the quality and complexity of the materials to be read by students. In addition, students read one million words annually on their own, including a good representation of narrative and expository text (e.g., classic and contemporary literature, magazines, newspapers, online information). Common Core RL.8.2. Determine a theme or central idea of a text and analyze its development over the course of the text, including its relationship to the characters, setting, and plot; provide an objective summary of the text. RL By the end of the year, read and comprehend literature, including stories, dramas, and poems, at the high end of grades 6–8 text complexity band independently and proficiently.

M ETHOD C ONCEPT F ORMATION Getting the students to create generalization statements

O VERVIEW OF W HAT S TUDENTS WILL DO (I’ M SHOWING YOU, I DON ’ T SHOW THIS TO THE KIDS ) 1. Students will be given a theme 2. They will help provide data related to the concept 3. They will find conceptual patterns and make groups 4. They will verbalize the relationships and label the groups 5. They will analyze similarities among all the groups and make a generalization statement based on each group So, now travel back in time to that wonderfully hormonal period known as … 8 th grade!

S O W HAT … Amazing generalization statements have been created, then what? The first activity my students did with their statements was find them in a text we had just read, providing textual evidence and their own commentary. Like so:

Students ultimately used this log for an essay they wrote about the short story; a response to literature where they needed to provide textual evidence and commentary. Other Products/Activities For My Class: We also used our generalization statements to go deeper and more complex into texts (generating discussion questions, quickwrites, etc.) In conjunction with Depth and Complexity Icons to create very high level thinking questions. With expository writing to help find the big idea of a reading and then take those findings into writing

“There Will Come Soft Rains” by Ray Bradbury

“The Tell-Tale Heart” by Edgar Allan Poe

The thinking is that if students can understand generalizations about a “theme” (in this case relationships) then they will better understand a text and be able to make connections on a deeper level. “Our children and students also learn best when they relate new information to things and ideas that are familiar. We can help them with this by teaching universal themes/concepts. By using this technique, we also help students to form “big ideas” that are transferred to future experiences…Universal themes can make the difference between knowledge and understanding—learning many facts vs. being able to apply those facts to something meaningful”. -Carol Fertig

Analyze both character’s actions in the story and argue whether the narrator was insane or if the old man deserved to die. With examples from the text, support your answers with details.

M ODIFICATIONS For my grade level (non-honors classes) I made a few modifications to the initial creation process in the interest of time. After this modification in the beginning, most subsequent activities were the same.

I N C ONCLUSION Next Year Instead of calling the strategy “Themes and Generalizations” perhaps call “Topics and Themes.” Start this at the beginning of the year and do a more deliberate job of incorparating it in class activities. Use cross contents, have students find examples of our theme in their other classes. Questions The idea of “theme”being a single word; isn’t that a topic? Would it be more appropriate for 8 th grade to have one “theme” per unit or keep it as one “theme” for the entire school year? How else could I use the generalization statements; how can I incorporate grammar?