Analyzing Themes with Traditional Literature

Teach your students the tough skill of identifying themes in literary texts with this scaffolded unit! This product includes five traditional literature tales: The Tortoise and the Hare, The Boy Who Cried Wolf, The Little Red Hen, The Three Little Pigs, and The Snow Queen (the movie Frozen was loosely based off of this tale!). In each story, students are to identify the theme, highlight the evidence in the text that points to the theme, and use words from the text to prove their answer. Identifying evidence and using words from the text to answer questions is an important habit for students to develop, and this product is scaffolded to help students to be able to do just that!

This product was created to fulfill the second half of the following CCSS:
CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RL.2.2 Recount stories, including fables and folktales from diverse cultures, and determine their central message, lesson, or moral.
CCSS.ELA-Litearacy.RL.3.2 Recount stories, including fables, folktales, and myths from diverse cultures; determine the central message, lesson, or moral and explain how it is conveyed through key details in the text.

I have also included a summarizing activity at the end of this product that can be used with any of these tales to practice recounting stories.

This pack includes all pages in both color and black-and-white. I projected the color versions on my SMARTBoard and copied the black-and-white versions for my students.

This product was used in my second grade classroom with much success. My students were able to use these familiar texts in a fun way, yet challenged to "prove" their thinking.

If you have any questions about this product, please let me know!

Thanks for taking a look!
Angela :)
Hippo Hooray for Second Grade!