Summer Reading Theme Essay
Overview: Skilled athletes work very hard to perform at a high level. They train individually, practice
with their teams, compete against others, assess their performances, and consult with their peers and
coaches. To do their best, athletes must repeat this process again and again.
Skilled writers also follow a process. For specific projects, they gather and organize their thoughts
(prewriting), connect their ideas on paper (writing), make changes as needed (revising and editing),
and assess and share their finished copy (publishing). To do their best work, writers must address
these steps for each piece they develop.
“What is written without effort is in general read without pleasure.”
- Dr. Samuel Johnson
Your Mission: You will use the writing process in order to write a five-paragraph essay (introduction,
three body paragraphs, and a conclusion) analyzing a theme in your summer reading novel. You will
incorporate ideas from your novel, non-fiction pieces and other sources into your writing to help
support your claim/theme. This assignment will help you build some valuable writing habits.
Step One: Prewriting
The first step in the writing process involves selecting a specific topic, gathering details
about it, and organizing those details into a writing plan.
Step Two: Writing
During this step, the writer completes the first draft using the prewriting plan as a guide.
This draft is a writer’s first chance to get everything on paper.
Step Three: Revising
During revising, the writer first reviews the draft for five key traits; ideas, organization,
voice, word choice, and sentence fluency. After deciding what changes to make, the writer
deletes, moves, adds to, and rewrites parts of the text.
Step Four: Editing
Then the writer edits the revised draft for the conventions of punctuation, capitalization,
spelling, and grammar. A writer should also proofread the final copy before sharing it.
Step Five: Publishing
This is the final step in the writing process. Publishing is the writer’s opportunity to share
his or her work with others.
Step One: Prewriting
Select a topic, find a theme, gather supporting evidence
Selecting a Topic
This summer you picked a topic to analyze for your paper. You may use this topic to develop your theme, or you may
select a new topic to discuss.
Ship Breaker
- Poverty
- Environmental Issues
- Child Labor
Code Name Verity
- Women in Combat
- The Nature of Truth
- Treatment of Prisoners
The Fault in Our Stars
- Feelings of Isolation
- Types of Support Systems
- Coping with Mortality
Analyzing a Theme
This composition requires you to analyze a theme that occurs in your fiction novel while using non-fiction sources to
support and strengthen your claims about the theme’s importance. First, you must read and annotate the non-fiction
pieces related to your topic. During this time, you should be looking for connections to your topic and thinking about how
the non-fiction pieces relate to your novel. Using your written reflection from the summer and your knowledge from the
non-fiction pieces, develop a relevant theme. Note: Many of you may have already developed a suitable theme in your
written reflection.
A theme is the meaning or concept we are left with after reading a piece of fiction. Theme is an answer to the question,
"What did you learn from this?" The theme of a story is not the same as its topic. The topic is simply the subject of a story.
The theme makes some revelation about the topic. A theme is always a statement; thus it must always be something that
can be expressed in at least one sentence. Example: a topic is war, but a theme might be “all’s fair in love and war.”
When writing your theme, you will create a claim or thesis statement for your essay.
Example of Theme/Thesis Statement: In The Outsiders, S.E. Hinton shows that regardless of socioeconomic status, all
humans share the same desire to belong.
Your Theme/Thesis Statement (rough draft): Follow the structure of the above example (book title and author included)
________________________________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________________________________
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Gather and Organize the Details
Using your note-taking guide from the summer, review and if necessary revise your quotation selections to adequately
support your claim/thesis.
Quote #1
Quote #2
Novel
(include
page
numbers)
Non-fiction
articles
Your
independent
source
Please be sure to keep track of your sources as you are working through your paper. You will
need to create a Works Cited page which will include all the information about your sources.
Step Two: Writing
Writing an Introductory Paragraph

Remember the introductory paragraph serves three purposes and should follow ANT:
o A- Attention Getter: First sentence or two should gain the attention of the reader
 Try the following ways to gain attention
 Provide an interesting story or anecdote about the subject
 Present a startling or unusual generalization about the subject
 Relevant quote from a well-known person (not from the book)
 Fact or statistic (try using a fact from one of the non-fiction pieces)
o N- Necessary Information: Include the following information

Author’s full name

Title of the story

Brief plot summary (Because you are writing on a book you should briefly summarize the story in
the introductory paragraph. Stick to the main ideas and not small plot points.)
o T- Thesis: The last sentence of your introduction should be your thesis statement
Writing Body Paragraphs
Your body paragraphs should provide a topic sentence. The rest of the paragraph should provide context for a quote or
a paraphrase example. Then you should provide that example. After you provide that example, you should explain how it
supports your thesis statement.
Body Paragraph One:
Topic sentence (restate the theme)/ Introduce theme in relation to the novel by telling what’s happening in the
book at that point. (Example: “At the beginning of The Outsiders, Cherry and Ponyboy- two characters from
clashing social groups- bond and find a sense of belonging through their love for literature.”)
Quote #1 from book (begin with “For example, when…”)
Analyze/explain how the quote supports your claim or shows your theme in two sentences or more
Quote #2 from book
Analyze/explain how the quote supports your claim or shows your theme in two sentences or more
Conclusion/transition sentence to wrap up ideas in this paragraph and/or start connecting ideas to the next
paragraph
Body Paragraph Two:
Topic sentence to discuss theme using non-fiction articles
Quote #1 from non-fiction articles (begin with “For example, when…”)
Analyze/explain how the quote supports your claim or shows your theme in two sentences or more
Quote #2 from non-fiction articles
Analyze/explain how the quote supports your claim or shows your theme in two sentences or more
Conclusion/transition sentence to wrap up ideas in this paragraph and/or start connecting ideas to the next
paragraph
Body Paragraph Three:
Topic sentence to discuss theme using your independent source
Quote #1 from independent source (begin with “For example, when…”)
Analyze/explain how the quote supports your claim or shows your theme in two sentences or more
Quote #2 from independent source
Analyze/explain how the quote supports your claim or shows your theme in two sentences or more
Conclusion/transition sentence to wrap up ideas in this paragraph and/or start connecting ideas to conclusion
Conclusion:
• You may want to start the beginning of your conclusion with a signal word (ex. thus, therefore, in short, as one can see,
etc.). For example: “As one can see, no matter how much money someone has or where they come from, the desire to
belong is part of the human experience.”
• Re-read your first body paragraph (the one where you used quotes from the novel). Summarize the ideas of the
paragraph in one or two sentences and include it in your conclusion.
• Re-read your second body paragraph (the one where you used quotes from the non-fiction articles). Summarize the ideas
of the paragraph in one or two sentences and include it in your conclusion.
• Re-read your third body paragraph (the one where you used quotes from the independent source). Summarize the ideas
of the paragraph in one or two sentences and include it in your conclusion.
• Use the last one or two sentences of your conclusion to answer the question "so what?" What are people supposed to
learn, understand, do, think about, etc. Tell the reader why the author’s use of this theme is significant. Focus on how
universal the theme is and how it can apply to different people and times.
Step Three: Revising
1. Read your first draft slowly and critically. Revising is not the same as editing for conventions. Remember that
when revising, you should look at the ideas presented.
2. Be sure to include a title for your paper. It should be something catchier than the very dull “Summer Theme
Essay.” It should relate to your theme!
3. Ask at least one other person to review your writing and give you suggestions.
4. Make as many changes as necessary to improve your writing.
Step Four: Editing
1. Check for errors in punctuation, capitalization, spelling and grammar. *Read your paper out loud! This will help
you to catch errors! In a formal essay, you need to be sure to use only third person. This means no first or second
person pronouns (I, me, we, you).
2. Have at least one other person check your writing for errors.
3. Prepare a neat final copy in MLA format
first-page header with your name and due date in the upper right corner of the paper
Title of paper centered after first-page header
1” margins
Times New Roman size 12 font
Double-spaced
Works Cited page
4. Proofread the final copy before turning it in.
Step Five: Publishing
1. Share your writing with friends, classmates, and family.
2. Submit your final essay to your teacher!
Honors English I
(LA103)
Summer Reading Project Essay 2013
Student:_____________________________
Intro Para with
theme/thesis
Body Para. 1
Book Ref.
Body Para. 2
Article
provided
Body Para. 3
Article selected
Conclusion
______/100
A
Excellent
B
Good Job
C
Average
D
Weak
Solid attention
grabber.
Smooth
transition. Well
structured thesis
statement.
Attention
grabber could
be better,
weak transition,
thesis is fairly
clear.
Attempt at
getting
attention,
abrupt
transition, or a
hint of a weakly
worded thesis.
No attempt at
getting
attention, and
thesis is weak or
not there.
Clear topic
sentence. 2
quotes are
provided. Ref to
book is
thoroughly
developed with
good quality
ideas.
Topic Sentence
is there. 2
quotes are
used, but 1
may not be a
good choice.
Development of
theme is not
very thorough.
Weak topic
sentence. 2
quotes are
given but not
developed.
Need clearer
connections.
No topic
sentence. Only
1 quote is
provided. No
development of
reference to
book.
Clear topic
sentence. 2
quotes are
provided. Ref to
book is
thoroughly
developed with
good quality
ideas.
Topic Sentence
is there. 2
quotes are
used, but 1
may not be a
good choice.
Development of
theme is not
very thorough.
Clear topic
sentence. 2
quotes are
provided. Ref to
book is
thoroughly
developed with
good quality
ideas.
Topic Sentence
is there. 2
quotes are
used, but 1
may not be a
good choice.
Development of
theme is not
very thorough.
Weak topic
sentence. 2
quotes are
given but not
developed.
Need clearer
connections.
No topic
sentence. Only
1 quote is
provided. No
development of
reference to
book.
Summarizes
main points and
restates
reworded thesis
well.
Summarizes
some main
points, states
thesis exactly.
Includes only 1
main point,
struggles with
thesis.
Does not
summarize main
points nor
restate thesis.
Only minor
errors.
Quite a few
errors - some
might hinder
understanding.
Significant
errors that
interfere with
understanding.
Areas for Improvement
Spelling
No errors.
Selection of Evidence
Critical Analysis
Development of Ideas
Conclusion
Spelling
Grammar
Sentence Structure
Voice
Organization and Flow
Incorporating Quotes
Weak topic
sentence. 2
quotes are
given but not
developed.
Need clearer
connections.
No topic
sentence. Only
1 quote is
provided. No
development of
reference to
book.
Parenthetical Citations
MLA format
Works Cited Format
Automatic Deductions
No title
Grammar
Punctuation
Introduction
No works cited page included
Multiple errors in MLA format
Use of first or second person
Quotations not introduced
No parenthetical citations
Less than five paragraphs
Late paper
Plagiarism (No credit for
assignment)