12. 19. 16Sarah kokoszka

Today In class we clarified what a topic and theme is. In our past English classes, we have learned that a topic is just one idea in a story or piece of writing. We also learned that a theme is one lesson through out the whole entire writing. In class today, we clarified that yes a topic is an idea, but a theme is more in depth. A theme, is more than one word, and it can be a claim rather than just a lesson. To add,  there are hundreds of themes throughout a piece of writing, rather than just one. To practice a theme vs topic, we listened to two different songs. These two songs were rap songs that both had a similarity within topics but a differ in themes. Both songs had the topic of the American dream, success, race, hard work etc.... although they both had the same topic, they both portrayed a different theme. In the first song we listened to, the theme showed that the American dream is achievable by any person. In the second song we listened to, it demonstrated that the American dream is not always this big amazing goal you think it is. Both these texts had basically the same topics but the way it was portrayed by using other types of vocabulary that there was a different theme. The first song showed a positive theme, and that the American dream can be accomplished by everyone. But I'm the second song it showed that the American dream is not the best thing in the world. To sum up, class today was basically practicing finding topic and themes with evidence to show. Evidence is key to topic and theme and we must be able to always have it to make our claim stronger.