ABSTRACT
This chapter covers some vocabulary terms used when studying literature, or any text (text, genre, theme) and ways to discuss, define and learn the terms. The core schema for supporting thinking about content is introduced here, the Text + Theme schema. It is presented as a graphic structure and supports students to evaluate content. This carefully constructed scaffold supports comprehension and deeper understanding of a text and its themes, starting with a single noun: if a student can identify a few nouns in what they read, then they can apply this schema. There are opportunities for practising and numerous examples of the scaffold at work referencing novels and plays. There are also several different variations, scaffolded to step-up or down in complexity, including a simple syntactic strategy to support sentence construction starting from a single word. No matter how basic the responses from students, each can experience success at some level here. The schemas do not require extra photocopying; they can be drawn quickly. And, once understood, there is little to no preparation necessary for the teacher to take this straight to the classroom, and for students to use independently.
