Home

English

Reading comprehension

Identifying themes and conventions

Identifying themes and conventions

Videos

Summary

Exercises

Select Lesson

Speaking

How to debate

Performing a play script

Punctuation

Commas

Colons and semi-colons

Brackets, dashes and hyphens

Sentences

Active and passive sentences

Grammar

Subject and object

Modal verbs

The subjunctive form

Expanded noun phrases

Word endings

Words spelt with 'ough'

Words ending in the 'shus' sound

Words ending in the 'shul' sound

Words ending in -ant or -ent

Words ending in -ance, -ancy, -ence or -ency

Words ending in -able or -ible

Words ending -ably or -ibly

Spelling

Homophones and near homophones

Commonly misspelled homophones

Using prefixes

Using suffixes

Words with silent letters

Synonyms and antonyms

The ‘i before e except after c’ rule

Using hyphens

Writing skills

Structuring a story

Organisation: bullet points, lists and paragraphs

Genres of fiction and non-fiction

Linking words

Writing a précis

How to use a thesaurus

Writing process

Identifying your audience and purpose

Structuring a text: paragraphs, sentences, conjunctions

Editing your writing

Proofreading your writing

Reading comprehension

Identifying themes and conventions

Using inference

Making predictions about a text

Language and structure

Social and historical context

Summarising a text

Finding information in non-fiction texts

The difference between fact and opinion

Figurative language: metaphors and similes

Reading - text types

Poetry, drama and genres of stories

Types of non-fiction texts

Explainer Video

Tutor: Kat

Summary

Identifying themes and conventions

​​In a nutshell

A theme is the primary idea or message that readers are supposed to get out of a text. Conventions are the methods the writer uses to convey these ideas and themes. In this summary, you'll learn about the different themes and conventions in writing.



Theme 

A theme is a recurring idea or image in any work. In stories, a theme is a message which a writer is trying to show the reader. Themes can express judgements such as, 'stealing from a shop is wrong', or 'human beings are equal, irrespective of race or gender'. Writers use their writing to show, or try to prove, these views and ideas to their readers.     

​

Example 

story

Summary

Themes

The Boy Who Cried Wolf 

A shepherd boy repeatedly tricks the nearby villagers into responding to his pleas for help by lying about an approaching wolf.
When the wolf finally arrives, nobody responds to his cries for help, because they think he's lying, and the wolf eats his sheep.

No one will believe a person if they are a liar, even when they are telling the truth.

A Totally Made Up Story About A Football Trio

A team of three football players had never won a football match before because each player would try to score without passing to his teammate.
One day the players decided they would pass to each other instead of dribbling and they scored a lot of goals and won the match.

Without teamwork, a person won't be successful.


Tip: A story can contain many different themes at once.



Conventions 

Conventions are the features which are expected in certain genres of writing, such as fairy tales, mystery stories, science fiction and ghost stories. These different conventions, characteristics and rules make each genre recognisable. 


Example

Genre

Conventions

Fairy tale
  • Fairy tales start with 'Once upon a time'.
  • Fairy tales have a mix of human characters and magical ones.
  • Fairy tales usually have a theme about good overcoming evil.

Love story / Romance
  • Love stories are usually about a couple who aren't together at the beginning of the story, but they fall in love eventually.
  • Love stories have happy endings.
  • Love stories often have emotional themes.

Science fiction 
  • Science fiction stories are frequently set in fictional worlds.
  • Science fiction stories contain elements of adventure and can involve space exploration as well as time travel.
  • These stories often have themes concerning the future, utopias and dystopias and alien life.

Historical fiction
  • Historical fiction is set in a real place during a culturally recognisable time.
  • Historical fiction has characters that are either completely imagined or based on real people.
  • These stories often have themes about social class, politics and war.
Read more

Learn with Basics

Learn the basics with theory units and practise what you learned with exercise sets!
Length:
Poems, plays and stories

Unit 1

Poems, plays and stories

Identifying themes and conventions

Unit 2

Identifying themes and conventions

Poetry, drama and genres of stories

Unit 3

Poetry, drama and genres of stories

Jump Ahead

Score 80% to jump directly to the final unit.

Optional

This is the current lesson and goal (target) of the path

Identifying themes and conventions

Unit 4

Identifying themes and conventions

Final Test

Test reviewing all units to claim a reward planet.

Create an account to complete the exercises

FAQs - Frequently Asked Questions

What are the conventions of the science fiction genre?

Science fiction stories are frequently set in fictional worlds. They contain elements of adventure and can involve space exploration as well as time travel.

What is a theme?

A theme is a recurring idea or image in any work. In stories, a theme is a message which a writer is trying to show the reader.

What is a convention in fiction?

Conventions are features which are expected in certain genres of writing.

©2020 - 2024 evulpo AG

Beta