Themes in Fables

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Home : 2008 : January : 12

Themes in Fables
By Tatha

Theme can be a difficult concept to initially understand, especially for primary students. Some fables have a moral written at the end and some don't. I would first start with the fables that have the moral written at the
end in order to introduce what theme is. What you want to get across to your students is that theme is THE Message from the author to the reader about an important lesson that he or she hopes the reader will learn from reading his or her story.

When I starting reading fables without a moral written at the end, I held up a clear bottle with a "message" inside that I told them was

from the author. I told them they had to think about characters from the fable and predict what the message from the author is. This seemed to help students "visually" think about the concept of theme, and they enjoyed discussing and sharing their ideas.