COMPARE AND CONTRAST ANCHOR CHART HOW TO

It’s a good idea to brainstorm with the class to create a list of possible themes commonly found in stories. When discussing the theme, you’ll want to make sure that students understand that the theme is the lesson in the story, the author’s message, or what the author wants readers to know. (It also comes in a print version for binders and notebooks!) If you are looking for a student version of your compare and contrast anchor chart, check this one out below. Anchor charts are great visual reminders that can be hung in the classroom and in a student’s interactive notebook.

Using this strategy helps students make a Venn Diagram and write similar things in green in the comparison bubbles and different things in the contrast bubble in red.Ī great way to teach and reinforce the meaning of theme and compare and contrast is to make an anchor chart. I love to use color coding in paired passages by making one color something similar in both stories (green) and another color that is different (red) about both stories. One thing that works well is to have students read both stories and then use the color-coding strategy to document their thoughts. The stories are similar enough to be paired passages but are different enough to be able to contrast. These two stories are paired passages found in this resource that can be used to compare and contrast themes. Take “The Monkey and the Pea” and “The Golden Touch” as an example. Not only that, but these stories are usually fun reads because of the magic and humor that is sometimes involved. That’s because these stories have a theme that is typically pretty obvious. One of my favorite genres to teach theme is traditional literature like fairy tales, fables, or folktales.

COMPARE AND CONTRAST ANCHOR CHART HOW TO

When we do a lesson and activity on theme, students usually have a much harder time completing them independently.Ĭompare and contrast lessons are usually very concrete, and the answers can be found “right there” in the text, whereas finding the theme is abstract and usually inferred.īut, teaching students how to compare and contrast themes doesn’t have to be complicated or boring.Ĭheck out four fun tips below on how to teach students to understand themes and be able to compare and contrast two texts by theme accurately. Most students are pretty familiar with how to complete the task of comparing and contrasting two books on their own accurately.

Compare and contrast anchor chart