Thematic teaching in High School Classroom is a highly effective approach to educating students about character, decision making and leadership. This initiative has the potential to produce students who are prepared to make a big difference in the world.
The most important themes for high school students include:
Thematic: Coming of Age
On the journey toward adulthood, teens must face many challenges, not only with outside entities but also with themselves. Teens comes to know who they are via a series of mistakes, challenges, decision making, and realizations.
A Catcher in the Rye is a good coming of age novels in a character deals with the ups and downs of life, basically via anger and rebellion.
The Perks of Being a Wall Flower is also a novel which deals with a character dealing with challenges between adolescence and adulthood.
Thematic: Courage and Heroism
The need to think about the safety and security of our neighbors rather than ourselves is critical if we are to steer the world toward peace and harmony. Teaching high school students how to appreciate the concepts of courage and heroism will go a long way in producing students who can answer any challenge to or happiness and freedom.
Robin Hood and the Hobbit are great novels depicting characters who display incredible boldness and victory for worthy causes, even stealing from the rich and giving to the poor. However, in modern times, we expose the greed of the rich to make them consider the poor.
Thematic: Individual vs Society
This theme deals with characters who are outsiders and who are trying to relate to society. Many teens see the world separate and apart from them. They fail to understand that they are born to play a significant role in helping transform society. However, most characters, instead of harmonizes with society they continue to rebel against it.
Teenage novels dealing with an individual vs Society theme include Nineteen Eighty-Four by George Orwell. The character rebels against an oppressive government. The Giver is also a novel about a difference-oriented character who grows up in a society that values sameness.
Thematic: Survival
In a society rattled by COVID-19, teens must know how to survive. Self-reliance is a trait that will go a long way in eliminated the sense dependency in adulthood.
Lord of the Flies by William Golding is a novel in which characters stranded on a deserted Island acquire courage to govern themselves. Yann Martel’s Life of Pi is a novel about a character experiences a shipwreck, after which he attempts to survive.
A thematic approach to teaching in high school will produce character driven individuals who will be able to learn, develop and grow into leadership material that will make a difference and move society into an era of greatness.
