THEME Review Activity:
“The Scarlet Ibis”
Using the elements of theme you have
learned thus far, answer the following
questions over the assigned story.
You may use your notes to help
answer each question. You will also
need to have your story packet, as the
questions should be answered with
text-based information. This means
you need to give actual examples from
the story…not just vague answers.
Click on any of the speakers to have the information
read as you complete this activity.
Created by: Amy Fuhr
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THEME is the central idea or message in a work of fiction. It’s a
perception about life or human nature that the writer shares
with the reader. Some ways to look for a theme include:
 review what happens to the main character. (Does the
character change during the story? What does the character learn about
life?)
 skimming key phrases and sentences that something
about life or people in general.
 thinking about the story’s title. (Does it have a meaning that
could lead to a major theme?)
 remembering that a story may have more than one
theme.
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Fill in the chart below with details from the story. To insert your answers, simply
click in the box and type your answers. Continue to the next page.
Key Passages
What Narrator Learns
Importance of Title
“Doodle was my brother, and
he was going to cling to me
no matter what I did, so I
dragged him across the
burning cotton field to share
with him the only beauty I
knew, Old Woman Swamp.”
(Example Response)
(Example Response)
“There is within me (and with
sadness I have watched it in
others) a knot of cruelty
borne by the stream of love,
much as our blood
sometimes bears the seed of
our destruction, and at times I
was mean to Doodle.”
Doodle really is a
companion, someone with
whom he can share the
place he loves, Old
Woman Swamp.
The scarlet ibis, like the
beauty of Old Woman
Swamp and like Doodle’s
fragile goodness, is rare
and “beyond the touch of
the everyday world.”
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Key Passages
“But all of us must have
something or someone to be
proud of, and Doodle had
become mine. I did not know
then that pride is a
wonderful, terrible thing, a
seed that bears two vines,
life and death.
“For a long, long time, it
seemed forever, I lay there
crying, sheltering my fallen
scarlet ibis from the heresy
of rain.”
What Narrator Learns
Importance of Title
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To make an INFERENCE, readers look at details and make
logical guesses about what they mean. To draw a
conclusion, readers combine these inferences with what
they already know. An active reader of fiction is constantly
making inferences and drawing conclusions about what the
characters are doing or thinking and what motivates them.
Inferences are often needed to understand
the theme of the story. The author relies on
the reader’s ability to make inferences and
draw conclusions about the main characters and events.
This really means to “read between the lines” since the
author is unlikely to directly state the theme of the story.
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Use the chart below to infer something about the main character’s
feelings. Use these inferences to draw a conclusion about him.
PASSAGE
“It was bad enough having an
invalid for a brother, but having
one who possibly was not all
there was unbearable.”
“I began to make plans to kill him
by smothering him with a pillow.”
“Renaming my brother was
perhaps the kindest thing I ever
did for him, because nobody
expects much from someone
called Doodle.”
“One day I took him up to the
barn loft and showed him his
casket, telling him we all
believed he would die.”
INFERENCE
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Use your inferences from the previous page to draw
conclusions about the main character. Basically, what
have you learned about the character?
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Based on your inferences about the main character and
title of the story, write a theme statement below. Explain
why you believe your statement fits the story.
When finished, save your assignment to the group folder on the “S” drive.