I don’t know about you, but my 7th and 8th graders REALLY struggle with finding theme. They think theme is something that an author will state right out, not something that they have to infer from character traits. This year I took a different approach to teaching theme.
Some back story! Our music teacher, Jennifer Schultze, is THE LADY that hosts our weekly middle school assemblies. She sets the foundation for our middle school culture. Last year, Mrs. Schultze introduced us to Cowboy Ethics. That got me thinking. Instead of having the students guess how they are living the Cowboy Ethics, why not have real life experience with them? That got me thinking even more: Why not use the Cowboy Ethics to teach theme? Which got me thinking even more: How am I going to do this? I contacted Mrs. Schultze about this since Cowboy Ethics is her thing. She was totally onboard and supportive. We brainstormed and bounced a few ideas around, and then off I went to teach how character traits develop theme in literature by using Cowboy Ethics.
8th Grade
My 8th graders were starting a unit called Voices and Viewpoints. This unit is part poetry and part speeches. I introduced the Cowboy Ethics with the first lesson. We read “The Rainy Day” and “Invictus.” I gave the students the theme “Live Each Day with Courage” and asked them how they saw theme in the two poems. They picked up on that one pretty easily because both poems are straightforward with this concept. Next set of poems were “We Real Cool” and “The Negro Speaks of River.” I again gave them the theme “Some Things Are Not for Sale.” This one they struggled with a little more, but they still seem to understand how Brooks and Hughes were talking about culture. I started second guessing whether this was a good idea. Then we did “Mending Wall,” which was the AHHH – THIS IS WORKING moment. I again gave them the theme “Talk Less, Say More.” The students jumped on that one and had lots of examples of how Frost illustrates barriers in communication.
The second part of Voices and Viewpoints is speeches: “The Gettysburg Address,” “Vice-President Johnson’ Memorial Day Address,” and “I Have a Dream.” For the first two speeches, I again gave the students the Cowboy Ethic that is illustrated and had the students tell me where they saw it. But, when I got to “I Have A Dream,” I changed up things. On the exit ticket, I listed all of the Cowboy Ethics and asked the students “Which one of the Cowboy Ethics do you think Dr. King Illustrates? Why?” Here is a cross section of my students of the answers I was given.
I think that Dr. King uses all of the cowboy ethics well. but the one that standout to me the most is to live each day with courage. because he never stopped trying each day and he had the courage to make the change that he did in the world.
A little bit of Remember some things are not for sale, some Know where to draw the line. The things that are not for sale are the ideals of freedom that our forefathers put in place, knowing where to draw the line is remaining civil.
Do what has to be done, because Martin Luther King JR. is saying that the Negros need to have equal rights.
I think he uses "Live each day with courage" and "when you make a promise keep it." Blacks need to be courageous to get the rights that they were promised by the Constitution and the Emancipation Proclamation.
I was thrilled to see how the students were able to apply the Cowboy Ethics to infer Dr. King’s message of hope for the future.
7th grade
My 7th graders were starting a unit called Irony. This unit has 3 short stories that illustrate irony, and the writing assignment is for the students to write a fictional narrative. Part of this unit is to understand the elements of a short story and how characters develop theme. I have found that 7th graders are pretty lost when trying to infer theme. This year, we used the Cowboy Ethics to describe the characters. When we read our first story of the unit “Charles,” I asked the students how the main character takes pride in his work. This helped the students to focus on what the character was doing. I did the same thing with “The Gift of the Magi,” the second short story, but this time I asked how Della illustrated “Do What Has to be Done.” Again, it helped the students to focus on what the character was doing. Then we did “The Necklace, the third short story. On the exit ticket, I listed all of the Cowboy Ethics and asked the students “to tell me which of the Cowboy Ethics Mathilde illustrated and why. Here is a cross section of my students of the answers I was given.
Mathilde illustrates "do what has to be done" because when she loses the necklace she does her own housework and does the things her maid would usually do for her.
Finish what you start. She bought a necklace at her cost but she still paid of the debt. It took her ten years but she finished.
the cowboy ethic of When you make a promise,keep it because she made a promise to her freind that she would return the neckles and even though she had to be in poverty for 10 years she kept the promise still
I was thrilled to see how the students were able to apply the Cowboy Ethics to infer the irony of the situation.
After we finished reading the stories, the students had to write their own fictional narratives. Developing theme is one of the objectives. This year, I gave them the Cowboy Ethics and said that they needed to pick one of the Cowboy Ethics as their theme. There seemed like there was a collective sigh of relief from the students because they were not left to their own devices to figure out a theme.
In conclusion
All in all, I feel that Cowboy Ethics is a concrete way to help the students see how characters develop theme. The Cowboy Ethics were the questions that the students needed to know to find character traits. It helps them to see past the physical part of the characters to the motivations of the character. Because the students could see the motivations of the characters more clearly, they were able to start to understand how the characters develop theme.
Owens, James P, and Brigtte Leblanc. Cowboy Ethics: What Business Leaders Can
Learn from the Code of the West. Skyhorse Publishing Company, Incorporated,
2015.
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