学进去

Reading is fun! You can also analyze texts（文本）to learn more from the texts and about the texts. One way you can do this with fiction books, passages, or poems is by exploring their themes.

A theme is a central idea running throughout the text, connecting the characters and events. The writer may express his or her thoughts about humanity or a worldview through a theme. Themes can be ideas like friendship, bravery, love, honesty or family. Make sure you know what the writer is saying.

Sometimes, themes are hard to find out. First, the theme may not be able to be included in just one word like the examples above. There may also be more than one theme in the text. What’s more, some themes are not presented in the words directly. You have to use clues in the texts to find them.

To start exploring the theme, first you need to make sure you’ve read the whole text. Since themes develop over time, you can’t fully understand the underlying themes until the end of the text. Then, ask yourself to sum up（概括）the text and try to work out a “big idea”. For example, did many characters resolve problems with their families? If there was only one small problem with a character’s family, then “family” might not be the theme of the text. Finally, after finding out a “big idea”, go through the text to find examples that support this idea. You needn’t repeat every detail of the story-a few key examples will be fine.

Now you are ready to explore the theme of a text!