Comparing Themes

In this lesson, the students will read The Hobbit and The Fellowship of the Ring and write an essay comparing the themes in the two books.

In this lesson, the students will learn about themes. First, the students will read the two books, The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien and The Fellowship of the Ring by J.R.R. Tolkien. As they read each book, they will take notes on the sections that reveal the theme. Then, they will take their notes and write an essay comparing the themes of each book. The theme is the main idea of a story. It is what the author wants to reveal to readers.

When the students start their essays, they need to first write what they think the theme was in each book, and then they need to locate places in each book that support their idea about the themes and include those sections in their essays.

The students will answer the following questions in their essay. What was the theme of the stories? In other words, what was the author wanting to reveal to readers as to why he wrote each book? How did the author reveal his theme throughout both books?

You can grade the students' essays on sentence structure, paragraph structure, grammar, punctuation, and spelling. You can also grade the students on how well they interpreted the theme of the short story and the statements they used to support their idea.