Test your understanding of the Finding Themes metacognitive reading strategy
Learning Objectives:
Overview:
Our next strategy is to look for main ideas or themes as you read. We write because we have something to say. Every thing you read is trying to communicate big ideas to you. Remember this mantra when you are looking for the main idea or theme.
Today, we'll go over three strategies to help you sift out relevant and useful information, and hopefully identify main ideas and themes:
Idea vs Detail:
Every sentence you read in a paragraph is either going to:
When you read, try to determine what each sentence is trying to accomplish. For example:
Topic Strategy:
This strategy is especially useful in literature. When you read, try to determine the topic that the author is exploring. You can find this by:
Once you identify the topic, ask yourself, "What does the author have to say about this topic?" You can find clues in:
Adding It Up:
The final strategy for finding themes is to start practicing how to add up the information given to you. If you can identify premises in the writing (facts that the author establishes), you can use them to figure out their conclusions.
When reading for information, look for topic sentences, bold words and titles, and how they use arguments and evidence to prove their ideas.
In literature, look for repeated ideas and uses of metaphor, literary devices, and clues in the setting, characters, and plot.
The rowboat had drifted at last to the end of the pond, but now its bow bumped into the rotting branches of a fallen tree that thrust thick fingers into the water. And though the current pulled at it, dragging its stern sidewise, the boat was wedged and could not follow. The water slipped past it, out between clumps of reeds and brambles, and gurgled down a narrow bed, over stones and pebbles, foaming a little, moving swiftly now after its slow trip between the pond's wide banks. And, farther down, Winnie could see that it hurried into a curve, around a leaning willow, and disappeared.
"It goes on," Tuck repeated, "to the ocean. But this rowboat now, it's stuck. If we didn't move it out ourself, it would stay here forever, trying to get loose, but stuck. That's what us Tucks are, Winnie. Stuck so's we can't move on. We ain't part of the wheel no more. Dropped off, Winnie. Left behind. And everywhere around us, things is moving and growing and changing. You, for instance. A child now, but someday a woman. And after that, moving on to make room for the new children."
Winnie blinked, and all at once her mind was drowned with understanding of what he was saying. For she—yes, even she—would go out of the world willy-nilly someday. Just go out, like the flame of a candle, and no use protesting. It was a certainty. She would try very hard not to think of it, but sometimes, as now, it would be forced upon her. She raged against it, helpless and insulted, and blurted at last, "I don't want to die."
"No," said Tuck calmly. "Not now. Your time's not now. But dying's part of the wheel, right there next to being born. You can't pick out the pieces you like and leave the rest. Being part of the whole thing, that's the blessing. But it's passing us by, us Tucks. Living's heavy work, but off to one side, the way *we* are, it's useless, too. It don't make sense. If I knowed how to climb back on the wheel, I'd do it in a minute. You can't have living without dying. So you can't call it living, what we got. We just *are*, we just *be*, like rocks beside the road."