Bridge to Terabithia by Katherine Paterson

Copyright: 1977

Publisher: HarperCollins

About the novel:

Terabithia is a place where Leslie and Jesse could escape it all - their parents, their annoying brothers and sisters, their mean teacher, and their cruel classmates. It was a place where they could be themselves, to play and to imagine without anything else in the world to worry about. It is here that they became best friends, and it is here that Jesse learns to deal with an unexpected tragedy that changes him, and others, forever.

What is this book like?

• Fiction
• Touching
• Surprising
• Fast-paced
• Inspirational

Online Resources to Support Text

Review Questions
This site offers review questions that may engage students' thinking. Students will be able to monitor their own comprehension as they answer these questions that are available per chapter.

Katherine Paterson Website
Official website of Katherine Paterson offers blurbs to many of her novels so children can find other books by the same author that they may enjoy.

Teaching Suggestions:

Lesson Name: Discussing friendship with Bridge to Terabithia                               Grade: 4

Content Standards:

·       ELA Standard 1.1a: activate prior knowledge and establish purpose for reading.

·         ELA Standard 1.1b: monitor comprehension and apply appropriate strategies when understanding breaks down.

·         ELA Standard 1.1f: make and justify inferences from explicit and/or implicit information.

·        ELA Standard 2.3a: Discuss and analyze how characters deal with diversity of human experience and conflict and relate these to real-life situations.

·        NCSS Standard IV(e): Identify and describe ways family, groups, and community influence the individual’s daily life and personal choices

Learner Background: (pre-reading activity)

Before reading we will discuss as a large group the qualities of a good friend, listing each one on the board. Then as a class we will group the terms by relevance into three to four main groups that define a good friend. Then, we will discuss qualities that are not typical of a good friend. As a class we will discuss reasons for why friends may act a certain way, good or bad, encouraging students to realize that how a student, friend, or teacher acts may not always determine whether they are nice or not. (I.e. friend is sick, upset about something, tired, had something bad happen to them, etc.) Then as a class we will construct our own definition of what it means to be a good friend.

Objective:

Students will be able to discuss deeply character development, focusing in on change over time, misconceptions, and characteristics specific to an individual that influence his or her interactions with others. Students will learn to create inferences as they analyze why characters have changed or why a character’s perspective of another changed in some way. Students will also be able to identify how characters impact others positively and relate their findings to their own personal experiences.

Assessment:

v  Before Reading: The students will be assessed formatively during the pre-reading group discussion. The students will be observed on their abilities to talk openly about qualities of a good friend and by their ability to relate them to their own personal experiences with friendship.

v  During Reading: Students will be assessed on their ability to identify characteristics of protagonists and antagonists in the novel, their ability to identify character change over time, and their ability to identify the reasoning or significance of these changes and how it relates to them personally. A character development chart will be used for assessment.    

v  After Reading: Students will be assessed on their ability to create a piece of writing that reflects thought and insight of the beneficial impact of one character to another and relate it directly to a personal experience of their own. The work will be assessed according to a rubric which the students will have a copy of as well.     

Materials/Resources:

·         Bridge to Terabithia text set by Katherine Paterson

·         Character development chart

·         Rubric for grading writing piece

Learning Activities:

During reading the students will be asked questions such as:

·         Have you ever become friends with someone you didn’t like at first?

·         Have you ever not liked a teacher before because you thought she was mean?

·         Do you think that everyone is either nice or mean?

·         What are some reasons why people may not appear nice?

These types of questions will help students to think more complexly as they learn about the characters in the novel. This will make it much easier for students to fill out their character development charts and to think critically about different points of view and why characters are the way they are, how some change over time, and how perceptions of others change as well. After the children have filled out their character charts the students will be asked to choose one character from the novel that grew or changed in some way, or a character that, while not necessarily changing, developed a new perspective in the eyes of either Leslie or Jesse. They will be asked to describe what happened in the novel and discuss what this change means to the student individually.

The children will be encouraged to think about:

·         What this change has taught him/her about friendship

·         What this change has taught him/her about others

·         What this change has taught him/her about themself

As a culminating activity students will write a short paper, 2-3 pages written, about the impact that Leslie and Jesse had on each other relating these ideas to their own life.

Writing Prompt:

Jesse and Leslie's friendship ended so abruptly that Jesse had a difficult time accepting it as reality. However, the experiences these two shared will continue in their memories for a lifetime.  

Describe how either Leslie or Jesse had a positive impact on the other. Identify a time in your own life when a person impacted you in a positive way. Relate these two experiences.

Think about:

·         Conflict/Obstacles

·         Love/Friendship

·         Fear

Differentiated Instruction:

ELL instruction:

For ELLs with high or moderately high ELP, students may benefit from using a Spanish/English dictionary while reading the novel and completing the charts and/or written assignment. It is highly likely that ELLs will need more time to finish reading the novel and to complete the assignments. ELLs with low ELP may benefit from hearing the novel read orally through the use of an audio and answering the questions orally.