Unleash the Power of Themes
Meaningful connections
Themes provide meaningful connections between stories. They help you unify your lessons by allowing you to link content areas, organize resources, systematically reinforce what students need to know, and focus on defined activities.
Social and emotional development
Reading about complex characters who grapple with developing kindness, honesty, communication, integrity, and other qualities helps your students reflect on, and improve, these qualities in themselves. Discussing theme-related questions develops students’ self-awareness and empathy, which are both important for positive conflict resolution.
Deeper learning and critical thinking
You can use our theme activities to prompt students to compare and connect texts and ideas, deepening their learning and critical thinking. Each story’s Theme Introduction question sets the stage for thinking about a big idea across texts. Our Theme Wrap-Up activities help your students evaluate and synthesize their thinking about the theme question. The Story-to-Story Connection activities encourage your students to consider how the theme plays out in at least two
stories—helping them learn to connect ideas from different texts.
Cross-curricular integration
Our themes complement and easily integrate with those used by other publishers.
Themes in Junior Great Books Series 2–5
Series 2, Book One
- Friendship
- Responsiblity
- Bravery
Series 3, Book One
- Relationships
- Kindness
- Confidence
Series 4, Book One
- Trust
- Resourcefulness
- Communication
Series 5, Book One
- Honesty
- Self-Respect
- Fitting In
Series 2, Book Two
- Generosity
- Community
- Being Yourself
Series 3, Book Two
- Gratitude
- Courage
- Cleverness
Series 4, Book Two
- Strength
- Integrity
- Perspective
Series 5, Book Two
- Family
- Humility
- Compassion
