Upon setting out to unpack ELA Reading standard 2, I found the language, which seemed so normal at a glance, to be unclear. The more I dug into the nuances of the words within the standards, the less consistency I found. When examining the terms of recount, central idea, central message, lesson, moral, and theme, I found conflicting ideas, and ultimately, had to make my own assertions. I must thank two of my sisters for helping me think through this one, as they both have literature backgrounds. I would love to hear your thinking on the topic.
The second College and Career Readiness Anchor Standard (CCR) standard for reading reads as follows:
Determine central ideas or themes of a text and analyze their development; summarize the key supporting details and ideas.
This overarching standard, which is to represent how students should think about both narratives and expository text, uses the terms central ideas or themes.
Within the grade levels, the language progression within Reading Literature Standard 2 is as follows:
1st Grade 2nd Grade 3rd Grade 4th Grade 5th Grade
central message central message, central message theme theme
or lesson lesson, or moral lesson, or moral
Common Core was developed with both an increasing of complexity of concepts throughout the grade levels, as well as a mirroring of concepts between literature and informational text standards. The CCR standards are meant to envelope diverse types of text. Therefore, when the CCR standard uses the term “central idea,” I believe this refers to the main idea, which is the gist of what the author is saying. In narratives, the main idea could be thought of who, did what, and how or why that was important. In expository, the main idea is the topic. The central idea/main idea is bound by the text. On the other hand, the grade level specific terms transcend the text. At first glance, these words seem like the same ideas, however, since the standards were created to increase as we progress through the grade levels (as seen below), then there must be nuances in their application.
Let’s examine each term individually, and then examine how they are related:
Theme
According to Griffith (2011), the theme expresses ideas about the real world outside of the text. Symbols, patterns, and problematic situations within narratives are some clues that help readers determine the theme. The theme is not the subject of the story, but rather, the commentary about that subject. While Griffith states that the theme must be a developed sentence, others believe the theme may be expressed in a word or phrase. Kirsner and Mandell (1994) examine themes as words, phrases, and sentences that depict human emotion, conflict, and experiences such as jealousy, loss of innocence, disillusionment of adulthood, and the beauty of love. Themes can be implicitly or explicitly stated, and stories may have multiple themes (Barone, 2011).
Central Message/Lesson
Students begin looking for the central message or lesson in first grade, which indicates that it is a concept that is less complex than theme. When we think of a central message or lesson, we can formulate our lesson around the question, “What can we learn from this story?” or “What does this story teach us?” These questions are simpler than theme, and while they do require a level of analysis by drawing conclusions and synthesizing the text, it does not require the reader to examine the text in the same depth as theme. There can be overlap between lessons and themes, but in general, themes go beyond lessons. (Barone, 2011)
Morals
The moral of a story is related to the lesson. Morals deal with issues of ethics or general truths. Often morals are found in fables, although they can also be found in other tales as well. At times the moral is explicitly stated at the end of a fable. This is called the maxim.
Morals are mentioned in the third grade standards, which makes sense as fables are also introduced at this grade level. This is more about a progression of explicitly expanding the types of narratives students read as they progress through the grade levels.
Tying it all Together
Based upon the individual analysis of terms, these are my conclusions:
The Central idea is the same as main idea. The central message is a lesson, which could be the theme. A moral is a specific type of lesson, most often found in fables. The theme is less concrete than lessons. To find the theme, readers must draw conclusions and infer based on a variety of evidence as found through recurring events, patterns, symbols, and underlying conflicts. The theme goes beyond a lesson, although there can be overlaps. Figure 3 is one visual interpretation of how these concepts can be viewed.
Therefore, in the story Cookies from Frog and Toad Together, the central or main idea could be Frog and Toad keep moving their cookies out of sight to show willpower, but they keep finding the cookies hard to resist. Within that story, they keep hiding the cookies from their sight, and keep finding that does not help because they always have access to the cookies. They learn (lesson or central message) that temptations are hard to resist, or that willpower takes more than putting something out of sight. The theme is based on recurring patterns. If we look at the collection of Frog and Toad stories, there is a focus on friendship. What does this story particularly say about friendship? Although Frog keeps helping Toad (and himself) by hiding the cookies and then ultimately feeding the birds, Toad ends up going back home to make more treats. Therefore, a theme at its most basic level could be friendship, or could be expanded to although we can help our friends, they ultimately must help themselves. As you can see, the concepts may align or cross over between what is bound within the text and what transcends the text.
References
Barone, D. M. (2011) Children’s Literature in the Classroom: Engaging Lifelong Readers. The Guildford Press. New York, NY.
Griffith, K. (2011). Writing Essays About Literature A Guide and Style Sheet. Eighth Edition. Wadsworth Cengage Learning: Boston, MA.
Kirsner, L. G., & Mandell, S. R. (1994). Fiction: Reading, Reacting, Writing. Harcourt Brace & Co: Fort Worth, TX.
Lobel, A. (1999). Frog and Toad Together. New York: HarperFestival
Learning is a journey, not an endpoint. 