Character Analysis: Bridge To Terabithia

Using the Think Pair Share Strategy
On Wednesday, June 15th, I used the think pair share strategy with my students in discussing the text Bridge to Terabithia. I quickly assigned partners to the students, by having talk to the person next to them. I asked the question “Why do you think Jess’s father did not want for him to become an artist?” I told them to explain their thinking to their partner. I tried to walk around and listen, but I only ended up listening to one group because they had trouble getting started. Once the group’s finished talking, I had each pair explain what they talked about in their pairs. Students uses skills such as prior knowledge “artists don’t make any money, maybe since their family is poor, Jess’s Dad wants him …show more content…
I asked students to get into their partner groups and talk about why they thought the main character, Jess, did not want to be friends with Leslie? Students discussed in their groups and I walked around to monitor their understanding. Once students came back together and we discussed, each student group offered something different and at varying levels of inference and understanding. One student group suggested it was because “Leslie is a girl.” Another group tagged unto that but went a little further and said, “We think it is because Leslie is a girl and Jess has four sisters. He already spends his time with them.” Another group also picked up on clues in the text that showed Jess was embarrassed for Leslie. One of my students said, “Maybe he doesn’t want to be her friend because she doesn’t dress right and she acts different.” I asked her cite a specific example from the text, and she discussed how on the first day of school everyone was dressed up, but Leslie was in cut offs. Another student said, “Maybe he doesn’t want to be her friend because she will get him in trouble and he will have to stand up for her.” The students had just read about how Jess stood up for Leslie to run their races and lost his race by doing …show more content…
The reading interest inventory helped me get to know my students as readers. The survey I choose let me know crucial information such as how many books they think the students have at home or have read, how did they learn to read, qualities that they think make a good readers, the books they like to read etc. All this information helped me plan for culturally responsive teaching, because I started to form an idea of student interests. Culturally responsive teaching is all about engaging students from different backgrounds and finding a way to relate instruction to their lives. The reading interest inventories gave me the beginning information that I needed to begin culturally responsive