Clarifying the Difference between Topics and Themes
Topics and themes? What’s the difference?
For students (and teachers), understanding the distinction between these two terms is vital for diving deeper into a text or unit. To start, here are some basic definitions:
A topic is a matter dealt with in a text. Topics describe what a text is about. (Ex: “Fear”)
A theme is an interpretation of a message conveyed by a text, written in a complete sentence and applicable to multiple texts or classes. Themes explore deeper meanings with universal relevance. (Ex: “Facing fear leads to growth.”)
SCENARIO: Let’s say you went to the library and asked the librarian for some book recommendations on the topic of “love.” The librarian would probably ask you for more information since this topic is too broad for an effective search. Instead, if you asked for some book recommendations on the theme of “love requires sacrifice”, you would receive a much more precise and useful list of options.
Reminders for Students:
A theme must be relevant to multiple texts and classes. Do not include specific references to the text or author under study in your theme.
A theme must be a complete sentence and must contain a verb. If you just write a word or a phrase (e.g. “Justice” or “The Power of Unity”), you are identifying topics, not themes.
A theme should be a debatable claim; it should be thought-provoking and not an obvious, easily accepted statement.
For example, “Our experiences shape who we become” is not really a debatable claim. Push it further, be specific, and revise. How do our experiences shape who we become? Why do our experiences shape who we become? What types of experiences? Positive? Negative? A stronger theme would be: “A life of only positive experiences is unfulfilling.”
Lastly, beware of clichés. Yes, “Don’t judge a book by its cover” is a theme but it’s also extremely overused! Instead, explore the concept in your own voice with some fresh and specific word choices.
Here are some more sample themes, generated by high school students, with their corresponding topics.
“Rebellion is a result of being discontent.” (REBELLION)
“Adolescence cannot happen without independence.” (ADOLESCENCE)
“In order for oppression to occur, members of an oppressed group must be turned against each other.” (OPPRESSION)
Some final thoughts on themes
With every text and with every unit, there is an opportunity to engage with themes. Sometimes referred to as “enduring understandings” as seen in the Understanding by Design framework, the task of articulating themes challenges students to summarize complex ideas and extend their learning beyond the specific unit. However, as mentioned above, they can also come off as trite expressions that add little to the learning. As professors Peter Rabinowitz and Corinne Bancroft (2014) write,
Themes are important elements in any text, especially if we view theme as Smith and Wilhelm do, in terms of “ongoing conversations” (156), as “more than an aphorism, a main idea, or a moral,” but rather “as a rich understanding expressed through a crafted work of art applicable to life beyond the work, and situated in an engaging cultural conversation that test and complicates it” (155). (p. 20)
In closing, I like to tell my students: How do you know your theme is on the right track? Ask yourself, could I write an interesting and specific essay about this? If the answer is yes, then you are probably in good shape!