WIT 2003

Creating interest-based themes

The theme is the organizing principle for your curriculum, the idea that engages with your students' passions (not to mention yours!) and makes your activities come alive.In this lesson, you will select a theme that will become the heart of your curriculum. Read through the principles and examples, or just jump straight to the activity.

Principles for choosing an effective theme
Theme selection activity
Examples of effective and not-so-effective themes

Back to the start of the Passion Curriculum WIT module

What is needed for an effective passion curriculum theme?

The passion curriculum model has four core principles. Said simply, these are:

  • Honor learner goals in all elements of the learning environment (the interest principle)
  • Locate all activities in meaningful work (the authenticity principle)
  • Ensure a rich social context (the social context principle)
  • Use many different motivational strategies to support interest (the rich motivation principle)

Themes for passion curricula should be chosen to make it easy to implement these principles.

In addition, you'll want to make sure that your theme provides enough depth and breadth to cover the learning objectives you care about.

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How should I go about choosing an effective theme?

You may have a candidate theme in mind already, or you may want to do some brainstorming to start out. The table below lists a variety of important considerations. You may wish to print out this table and use it as a brainstorming or idea-checking aide. Click here to download a word processor file with this form (make sure to save it with your own filename). Run your existing ideas through this table to make sure they have many of these characteristics. If you wish, use the table to generate more ideas. Then pick your favorite one and go for it!

Considerations in theme selection for passion curricula:

Consideration Questions to help you analyze each factor Answers to these questions in your context
Explicit passions When asked, what do learners say are their interests? What do they do during unstructured time in a variety of settings (home, school, etc.)? What do their families and teachers say about students’ interests?  
Competency What skills do learners have? What are they good at? What do they think they are good at? Research shows that people tend to be motivated when they feel competent.  
Passions held by students similar to yours What kinds of interests appear in local youth groups? What kinds of experiences interest students of similar ages? What interests are promoted by the local culture? (sports? arts? political activism? entrepreneurship? music?)  
Local resources What kinds of themes can local resources support? (A white-water rafting curriculum might not be ideal for a school located in the Great Plains). Who are the "experts" in your area, and what kinds of things are they expert in?  
Authenticity Choose themes that are based on interesting, complex adult work.  
Challenge Choose themes that can be adjusted so that they are simple enough for novices do, difficult enough to challenge experienced students, and interesting for both.  
Your interests If you are passionately interested in something, your students are likely to be interested, too. Choose a theme that inspires you. On the other hand, click here to see examples from Diana and Janet, where teacher interest was not enough.  
Your skills and talents You will be able to support your curriculum more effectively if you know the theme very well.  
If you decide to work in an area new to you... If you want to choose a theme you don't know very well, make sure there are other resources available in your community. And make sure the theme is interesting enough for you that you'll be inspired to educate yourself.  

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Examples of themes that worked (or didn't) and how they were selected

Diana says: The very first passion curriculum I ever designed was about flight. I thought that since lots of the adults I knew were very interested in planes, that guaranteed that kids would be interested. I tried it out with a group of fifteen Chicago 8-year-olds, meeting once a week in the summer. It never caught on. I think there were three problems. First, I didn't know that much about flight, so I couldn't run with their ideas. Second, we didn't meet often enough to connect the ideas from one day to the next. Third, and most important, I never bothered to check whether these students were actually interested in the theme! Few of the children had ever been on an airplane or fantasized about being on an airplane ... bottom line, they just weren't that interested in the ideas.

What they turned out to be interested in was the video camera -- I'd brought the camera in so that I could record what was happening and use it improve the curriculum later. The children couldn't stay away from it. Some wanted to be in the picture all the time. Some wanted to be behind the camera. Their fascination showed me that video was bound to make a terrific theme. So that's what I tried next, and its always served us well.

Janet's stories about effective and not-so-effective themes

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