Theme statements(revisited)

Theme Statement

1 word theme +

Example: Herman Hesse’s Siddhartha is about the importance of internal struggle on the path to enlightenment.

what the book says about that theme specifically

Which of these is a theme statement?

The Three Hermits is about prayer.The Three Hermits is about three religious men learning to pray.The Three Hermits is about the multiple ways that prayer can lead to God.The Three Hermits is a story with a lot of religious images that help keep the reader interested.

Important questions:

How would you support this theme statement in an essay?

What does the statement lead you to expect from the rest of the essay?

Example theme statement: The Cub is a story about the inevitability of change within family dynamics.

Progression of a theme statement

Theme

Theme statement (what does the book say specifically about the theme?)

Evidence of how I know that statement is true (literary devices, specific episodes in the plot)