Following a Theme Through a Work

One of the most common tasks we ask of students of literature is to discuss how a theme is handled in a literary or intellectual work. Students have traditionally used indexes, where available, to follow a theme through a work. With access to an electronic version of a text a student can now use the search function in a word processor to search for words that would be indicative of the theme. With more advanced search tools or text analysis environments students can build their own study concordance of passages around a theme. The steps a student can take typically involve the following:

1. Access an appropriate edition of the text under study. The instructor who wants to encourage text analysis for learning should guide the students to appropriate editions.
2. Identify the theme for study. This is the difficult part since most interesting themes are not found simply by searching for a single word. Students should be encouraged to develop a list of words that might be indicative of theme. These words could be synonyms (see Thesaurus.com or WordNet.)
3. Use a search and concordance tool like the TAPoRware Find Text - Concordance tool. This tool will let the user submit the URL for an HTML version of a work and provide a list of words to search for. It then generates a concordance of passages for reflection. HyperPo is an online interactive concordance which, while more complex, lets one explore

Many themes can't be easily followed by searching for words. The challenge of using searches to follow a theme provides an opportunity to engage students on the issue of words and meaning. Some strategies to enhance this recipe are:

• Collocation tools like the TAPoRware Find Text - Collocation will show what words are located near the word you search for. Students can search for a word clearly related to the theme in order to find other words that might help follow the theme. The high frequency words in the neighborhood of a keyword can also provide a sense of the semantic field of an idea. This can be useful for brainstorming around a theme in order to develop original essay ideas. Students should be encouraged to ask what terms are anomalies - what words did then not expect? What stands out?
• List Words is a way to identify what might be the interesting themes in the first place. A tool like the List words TAPoRware tool can provide a list of words sorted by frequency. The words that appear often in a text, at least those that are not function words like "the" and "a", can indicate themes. Students should be encouraged to ask why an author would use a content word frequently as they scan the list of words. An alternative to this approach is to compare the text to another in order to identify words that appear more often in the target text than a control sample. Again, the high frequency words can be indicative of themes worth following with a concording tool.