1. THEME ELEMENTS

2. What is theme? ◦ Life Lesson ◦ Moral of the story ◦ The author’s message

3. Inference ◦ What is inference? ◦ A conclusion reached on the basis of evidence and reasoning. ◦ synonyms: ◦ deduction ◦ conclusion ◦ reasoning ◦ conjecture ◦ speculation ◦ guess ◦ presumption ◦ assumption ◦ supposition ◦ reckoning ◦ extrapolation

4. Inference/Theme ◦ Most authors do not tell you the theme of the story/novel ◦ When do you know the theme within the story? ◦ Fables

5. Think about the big picture ◦ Don’t get caught up in the plot and characters ◦ What is the theme of this story? ◦ Tim hated his old baseball glove. He wanted to play with a new glove, but he didn’t have any money, so he decided to steal it. But when Tim got caught stealing the glove, his parents said he couldn’t play baseball all summer.

6. The Three Little Pigs ◦ Think of the story of The Little Pigs ◦ What is the theme?