1. THEME Review Activity: “The Scarlet Ibis”
Using the elements of theme you have learned thus far, answer the following questions over the assigned story. You may use your notes to help answer each question. You will also need to have your story packet, as the questions should be answered with text-based information. This means you need to give actual examples from the story…not just vague answers.
Click on any of the speakers to have the information
read as you complete this activity.
Created by: Amy Fuhr

2. T H E M E
THEME is the central idea or message in a work of fiction. It’s a perception about life or human nature that the writer shares with the reader. Some ways to look for a theme include:
review what happens to the main character. (Does the character change during the story? What does the character learn about life?)
skimming key phrases and sentences that something about life or people in general.
thinking about the story’s title. (Does it have a meaning that could lead to a major theme?)
remembering that a story may have more than one theme.

3. T H E M E
Fill in the chart below with details from the story. To insert your answers, simply click in the box and type your answers. Continue to the next page.
Key Passages
What Narrator Learns
Importance of Title
“Doodle was my brother, and he was going to cling to me no matter what I did, so I dragged him across the burning cotton field to share with him the only beauty I knew, Old Woman Swamp.”
(Example Response)
Doodle really is a companion, someone with whom he can share the place he loves, Old Woman Swamp.
The scarlet ibis, like the beauty of Old Woman Swamp and like Doodle’s fragile goodness, is rare and “beyond the touch of the everyday world.”
“There is within me (and with sadness I have watched it in others) a knot of cruelty borne by the stream of love, much as our blood sometimes bears the seed of our destruction, and at times I was mean to Doodle.”

4. T H E M E Key Passages What Narrator Learns Importance of Title
“But all of us must have something or someone to be proud of, and Doodle had become mine. I did not know then that pride is a wonderful, terrible thing, a seed that bears two vines, life and death.
“For a long, long time, it seemed forever, I lay there crying, sheltering my fallen scarlet ibis from the heresy of rain.”

5. T H E M E
To make an INFERENCE, readers look at details and make logical guesses about what they mean. To draw a conclusion, readers combine these inferences with what they already know. An active reader of fiction is constantly making inferences and drawing conclusions about what the characters are doing or thinking and what motivates them.
Inferences are often needed to understand the theme of the story. The author relies on the reader’s ability to make inferences and draw conclusions about the main characters and events. This really means to “read between the lines” since the author is unlikely to directly state the theme of the story.

6. T H E M E
Use the chart below to infer something about the main character’s feelings. Use these inferences to draw a conclusion about him.
PASSAGE
INFERENCE
“It was bad enough having an invalid for a brother, but having one who possibly was not all there was unbearable.”
“I began to make plans to kill him by smothering him with a pillow.”
“Renaming my brother was perhaps the kindest thing I ever did for him, because nobody expects much from someone called Doodle.”
“One day I took him up to the barn loft and showed him his casket, telling him we all believed he would die.”

7. T H E M E
Use your inferences from the previous page to draw conclusions about the main character. Basically, what have you learned about the character?

8. T H E M E
Based on your inferences about the main character and title of the story, write a theme statement below. Explain why you believe your statement fits the story.
When finished, save your assignment to the group folder on the “S” drive.