Lesson Plan

Bridge to Terabithia
Level 3 • Lexile 810L • Fiction/Fantasy • Page Count: 176

LEVEL 3

Lexile 500L –1000L

Grades 3–4

Author: Katherine Paterson

Illustrator: Donna Diamond
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Book Summary
Jesse Aarons has a difficult time at home and in school
in the rural Virginian town where he lives. This changes
when he becomes friends with his new neighbor, Leslie
Burke. Then tragedy strikes, and Jess must learn a
difficult life lesson. In this coming-of-age story, Jess
makes and loses his best friend, and learns about the
power of imagination, the joy of friendship, and the
tragedy of death.
Reading Strategy: Summarize
Comprehension Skill: Analyze Character
  Bridge to Terabithia Lesson Plan

How to Use the Lesson Plan Before Reading

This lesson plan is designed to be used with Bridge to Terabithia.
Read the book and teach the lesson as a whole class. Or, assign
the book to a reading group and teach all or part of the lesson in
a small-group setting. Worksheets support the learning objectives
of the lesson. Use the discussion cards to set up literature circles.
Build Background
• Explain to students that this story examines the growing friendship
between the two main characters, a relationship that affects other
aspects of their lives. Ask students to share with a partner accounts
of friendships that changed their lives. Call on students to share
experiences with the rest of the class.

About the Lesson Introduce the Book

Targeted Reading Strategy • Distribute copies of Bridge to Terabithia, by Katherine Paterson.
• Summarize • Ask students to look at the cover art and read the copy on the book
jacket or back cover. On the basis of what they read, have students make
predictions about what might happen in the story. Encourage them to
Objectives write down their ideas and review their predictions as they read.
• Summarize events, chapters, and sections in a long story
• Analyze characters in the text Introduce the Reading Strategy: Summarize
• Identify and construct compound and complex sentences • Review with students that one way to understand and remember
• Define words using context and a dictionary what happens in a long book is to summarize, or determine the most
important events and ideas in a section of text and to rephrase or
rewrite these details in their own words.
Materials
• Remind students that a summary includes only the most important
• Book: Bridge to Terabithia (copy for each student or group) details about the story elements, including the setting, characters, plot,
• Chalkboard and theme. Review with students the five stages of plot: introduction,
• Recorded version of the text (optional) rising action, climax, falling action, and resolution.
• Student notebooks • Point out to students that the title of a book can provide clues to the plot
of a story. Ask them to make predictions about events in a story called
• Summarize, analyze character, and dictionary worksheets Bridge to Terabithia.
• Have students turn to the table of contents and point out that it can also
provide clues. Ask students to discuss with a partner what they learn
about the place called Terabithia and the story as a whole from reading
the table of contents.Encourage students to pay attention to the chapter
titles as they read. After reading each chapter, they should be able to
explain what the title means by summarizing the chapter.

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  Bridge to Terabithia
• Explain to students that summarizing draws on other skills, such
as sequencing events, identifying story elements, and problem and
solution. Encourage students to use other reading strategies in addition
to summarizing.
Introduce the Comprehension Skill: Analyze character
• Review with students that there are many ways to learn about a character
in a story. Explain to students that an author uses a character’s words,
thoughts, and actions to give insight into a character’s personality,
relationships, motivations, and the conflicts he or she may face. Point out
that some of these facets of the character will change over the course of
the story.
• Distribute copies of the analyze-character worksheet. Ask students to
add details about the characters while reading the beginning, middle,
and end of the story, and to record how characters change as the story
progresses.
Introduce the Vocabulary
• The text contains examples of figurative language as well as Appalachian
dialect and incorrect grammar in dialogue. See the chapter breakdowns
for unfamiliar words and phrases in each section.
• Explain to students that the author tried to recreate the way people
actually speak when she wrote the dialogue. Encourage students to read
the dialogue aloud to assist them in deciphering the dialect vocabulary.
• Direct students to write down any unfamiliar words they read.
• Remind students that they can use their word-attack strategies to
determine the meaning of unfamiliar words. Encourage them to look at
the context of difficult words, as well as whether they have root words,
prefixes, or suffixes.
Set the Purpose
• To set a purpose for reading, supply this focus question: How does the
main character in Bridge to Terabithia change and grow?
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Lesson Plan
During Reading
Student Reading
• Guide the reading: Read chapter one aloud and use the passage as
a model to practice the reading strategy of summarizing. Encourage
students to summarize the chapter in two or three sentences, reminding
them that a summary includes only the most important details in a section.
• Have students practice the comprehension skill of analyzing character.
Guide students with the following questions: Who is the main character?
What do we learn about his personality in chapter one? Which actions
reveal his personality?
• Direct students to summarize events in the story in their mind as
they read. Remind them to continue filling in their analyze character
worksheet.
• Assign the entire book to all students or divide the class into small
groups and have each group read a chapter or section.
Check for Understanding Section by Section
Chapters 1– 2
Jesse and Leslie
• Summary: Jess Aarons, a shy boy who likes to draw, is determined to
be the fastest runner in Lark Creek Elementary’s fifth grade. He practices
every day of the summer vacation on his family’s farm in rural Virginia.
Just before the school year begins, the Burke family moves in next door.
Leslie Burke is Jess’s age, but comes from a very different background.
She grew up in suburban Washington, D.C., and has had a different
childhood compared to the Aarons family’s hardscrabble existence. She
dresses like a boy and has short-cropped hair, so Jess can’t immediately
tell that she is a girl. Their first meeting is awkward. Leslie wants to be
friends with Jess, but Jess rushes off to do chores instead.
• Explanation: The story is set in a small Appalachian town in the 1970s,
after the end of the Vietnam War. Jess’s family speaks the Appalachian
dialect, which has colorful idioms, colloquialisms, and incorrect
grammar. This is in contrast to other characters, including the Burkes,
who do not speak in an Appalachian dialect.
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  Bridge to Terabithia
• Comprehension (Story Elements): Ask students to identify the
characters, setting, and the stages of plot explored in these chapters.
Encourage students to look for similar story elements in the chapters
to come.
• Figurative Language: Draw students’ attention to the similes in the
first paragraph of chapter one (such as as hot as popping grease and
as tough as his worn-out sneakers). Encourage students to look for more
figurative language and literary devices, such as the use of dialect, in the
chapters to come.
• Vocabulary: backwash, grits, hypocritical, pandemonium,
Chapters 3 – 4
Creating Terabithia
• Summary: The first day of school does not go well for Jess. At first, he
feels sorry for Leslie, who looks so different from the other students. Then,
Leslie joins the boys’ running races, and beats Jess in the first heat. Jess’s
dream of being the best runner is dashed. He avoids Leslie on the school-
bus ride home. Later that week, Jess changes his mind about Leslie during
a music class taught by Jess’s favorite teacher, Miss Edmunds. Afterward,
Jess and Leslie sit together on the bus ride home, and Leslie tells Jess about
her life before moving to Lark Creek. Soon after, when the other girls are
teasing Leslie, Jess stands up for her against big and bossy Janice Avery.
Later that afternoon, Leslie suggests they create a secret place for just the
two of them. They name their magical kingdom in the woods Terabithia.
• Explanation: Terabithia is an imagined magical kingdom. Ask students
to discuss other magical kingdoms they have read about. Explain that
Leslie bases Terabithia on Narnia, the magical kingdom in the series of
books by C.S. Lewis. Ask students if they have read any of the Narnia
books, and invite them to share what they remember with the class.
Ask students to look for similarities between the kingdoms of Terabithia
and Narnia, or other discussed magical kingdoms, as they read.
• Comprehension (Analyze Character): Ask students to describe how
Jess has changed since the beginning of the book and to identify the
reasons for those changes. (Students should recall that Jess was too shy
to even talk to Leslie when they first met, and now she has become his
best friend. In addition, Jess’s goal was to become the best runner at
school, but now he has abandoned that goal.) Ask students to compare
the characters of Jess and Leslie in terms of age, class, and life experience.
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Lesson Plan
• Figurative Language: Ask students to identify a simile like the ones
they found in the first paragraph of chapter one ( mad as flies in a fruit
jar ). Record them on the board and discuss with students the meanings
of these similes.
• Vocabulary: clabber, insufficiencies, reassess, regally, siege
Chapters 5 – 6
Getting Even & Getting a Puppy
• Summary: After Janice Avery steals a treat from Jess’s little sister,
Jess and Leslie hold a council of war in Terabithia to plan their revenge.
Their plot involves a forged love letter to Janice from school heartthrob
Willard Hughes. Their plot works. Janice is embarrassed and mad, Jess’s
little sister is impressed, but Jess feels some remorse for what they did.
As Christmas approaches, Jess agonizes over what to give Leslie, until
he sees a sign for free puppies. Leslie is thrilled with her present. The
puppy, named Prince Terrien, joins them in Terabithia.
• Comprehension (Problem and Solution): Like Jess’s little sister,
both Leslie and Jess are bullied at Lark Creek Elementary. Ask students
to review these chapters and describe how Jess and Leslie deal with
bullies. Have students identify other problems in the story and how
the characters are working to solve each one.
• Multiple meaning words: Point out that the word pitch in this section
means tar, not to throw. Ask students if they have come across other
multiple-meaning words in the book. (For example, grit meaning courage
or toughness, and grits meaning a side dish made from corn meal.)
Record these words on the board and discuss them with the class.
• Vocabulary: foundling, pitch
Chapters 7– 8
From Christmas until Easter
• Summary: Leslie spends her free time helping her father fix up their
house. Jess mopes outside with the puppy until Leslie suggests he help
them. Jess, who is handy with tools, impresses Leslie’s father and basks
in his praise. Jess gets to know Leslie’s parents and their interests. After
many months away, Jess and Leslie return to Terabithia and reclaim their
kingdom from imaginary hostile savages who took over in their absence.
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  Bridge to Terabithia
Back at school, Janice confides to her friends that her father beats her,
and they tell the whole school. Janice is humiliated and hides out in the
girls’ bathroom to cry. Jess persuades Leslie to help Janice, and they both
end up showing compassion to their former enemy. Later, Leslie asks to
go with the Aarons to the Easter church services. She wears a dress and
is very polite to Jess’s mother, who is suspicious of Leslie, her family, and
their seemingly strange ways.
• Comprehension (Analyze Character; Compare and Contrast):
Ask students to compare and contrast the reactions of Jess and Leslie
to the Easter church service. How do their reactions help you better
understand their characters? Discuss with students the conclusion
of chapter eight. How does this chapter ending make them feel?
• Vocabulary: complacent, prospectors, sanctuary
Chapters 9 –10
A Perfect Day, Shattered
• Summary: Spring rains turn the gully in the woods into a creek. The two
friends must swing across the gully on an enchanted rope that transports
them to Terabithia. The rains continue and Jess becomes fearful of
swinging across the creek. He decides he will just tell Leslie he won’t go
to Terabithia. He worries that Leslie will go without him but forgets the
next morning, when Miss Edmunds calls Jess’s house and invites him to
join her on a field trip to Washington, D.C. It’s not until they are already
on their way that he realizes he could have asked Miss Edmunds to take
Leslie as well, but thoughts of Leslie disappear as Jess has the best day
of his life. The perfection of his day is shattered when Jess returns home
to discover that Leslie died trying to cross the creek into Terabithia.
• Comprehension (Cause and Effect): Ask students to construct chains
of cause and effect in the story, and then discuss how these events
changed the characters’ lives. Students should identify what drove the
two friends to create their imaginary world, identify events that caused
the characters to change over the chapters, and determine the cause-
and-effect relationships that led to Leslie’s death.
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Lesson Plan
• Figurative Language: The author describes the creek that separates the
characters from Terabithia as a roaring eight-foot- wide sea with hungry
waters and compares it to the water that swept all the Egyptians away in
the Bible. Explain the reference, and then discuss with students why the
author made this allusion. Have students discuss with a partner the use
of foreshadowing in a novel, and find specific examples in the book.
Chapters 11–13
Denial, Grief, and Acceptance: Building the Bridge
• Summary: Jess can’t accept Leslie’s death and runs off. His father
follows and brings him home. Jess goes to bed fully dressed, imagining
he will see Leslie in the morning. This denial continues the next morning.
Jess and his parents go to the Burkes’ to pay their respects, but Jess is
too angry with Leslie for abandoning him to stay. He runs back to his
house, punches his little sister, grabs a paint set Leslie gave him, and
runs to the creek. He throws the set into the water. Later, Jess begins
to accept that Leslie is dead. He takes Prince Terrien to Terabithia and
makes a funeral wreath for the dead queen, observing the rituals that
Leslie had taught him. He is interrupted by his little sister’s screams.
May Belle had followed him and is stuck on the flimsy tree bridge. Jess
rescues his terrified sister, builds a safe bridge across the creek, and
invites May Belle to become the next queen of Terabithia.
• Explanation: Explain to students the five general stages of grieving
identified by psychiatrist Elisabeth Kübler-Ross: denial, anger, bargaining,
depression, and acceptance. Ask students to identify with a partner
the stages of grieving as Jess experiences them. Have students locate
specific passages in the book that connect Jess’s experience of grieving
to Kubler-Ross’s five stages, and discuss with students whether Jess goes
through all or some of the five stages.
• Comprehension (Analyze Character): Ask students how Jess has
changed since the beginning of the story. Students should be able to
recognize that he has more self-confidence and is more mature. Connect
this to the idea of a coming-of-age story. Ask students how Leslie’s
friendship, the imaginary kingdom of Terabithia, and Leslie’s death
all contributed to Jess’s new maturity.
• Vocabulary: flank, leaden, traitorous
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  Bridge to Terabithia
After Reading
Reflect on the Reading Strategy
• Ask students to share any diagrams and notes they used to keep track
of the story. Discuss with students which details must be included in a
summary, and which details should be omitted.
• Have students work with a partner to summarize their favorite parts of
the story. Invite volunteers to share those parts with the rest of the class.
• Return to the table of contents and ask students to explain how each
chapter title is a brief summary of the details in the chapter. Have
students work with a partner to orally summarize the book.
• Independent practice: Introduce, explain, and have students complete
the summarize worksheet. If time allows, discuss their answers.
Reflect on the Comprehension Skill
• Discuss with students the difference between main and minor
characters. Guide students in differentiating between main and
minor characters in this book.
• Ask students to work in groups to name and describe the characters
in Bridge to Terabithia. Ensure they include minor characters. Call on
groups to share details with the rest of the class. Write their responses
on the board.
• Independent practice: Have students complete their analyze-character
worksheet. Ask volunteers to refer to their worksheet to find examples of
how characters changed during the story. Invite volunteers to explain to
the rest of the class how characters change over the course of the story.
• Focus students on characters they have not already addressed, such as
Janice Avery and May Belle. Discuss with students how analyzing the
ways characters change during the story help them understand and
enjoy the book.
• Enduring Understanding: In this story, Jess’s personality transformed
from that of a shy follower to a brave leader. How can an amazing
friendship and a tragic loss help someone mature? How did Jess’s
friendship and tragic loss contribute to his growth? What important
life experiences have influenced the person you are today?
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Lesson Plan
Reflect on the Purpose
• Refer students back to the focus question: How does the main character in
Bridge to Terabithia change and grow?
• Have students work in pairs to discuss and share their answers to this
question. (By the end of the book, Jess has become more confident,
learned that people sometimes view life and the world differently,
come to respect these differences, and so on.)
• Extend the discussion: Invite students to reflect on the themes of
the story, such as family, friendship, bullies, and death. List the themes
on the board. Ask volunteers to share key words and events from the
book that explore each theme. Have students work in groups to discuss
how the book develops each theme and how they are connected to
the characters.
Build Skills
Grammar and Mechanics:
Compound and complex sentences
• Write the following sentence from page 1 on the board and read it aloud
with students: His dad had the pickup going. Explain that this is a simple
sentence. It has one subject and one predicate. Review that the subject
of a sentence (dad) tells who or what the sentence is about, and that the
predicate (had the pickup going) tells what the subject is or does.
• Write on the board the following sentence and have students read it
aloud: She was going on seven, and she worshiped him. Have students
identify the subjects and predicates with a partner. Review or explain
that a compound sentence contains two or more simple sentences joined
by a connecting word called a coordinating conjunction. Write the three
most common coordinating conjunctions on the board: and, but, and or.
• Encourage students to find another compound sentence in the first
chapter. (His straw-colored hair flapped hard against his forehead,
and his arms and legs flew out every which way.)
• Write the following sentence on the board and read it aloud with
students: May Belle lifted herself up sleepily from the double bed
where she and Joyce Ann slept.
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  Bridge to Terabithia
• Underline where in the sentence on the board. Explain that the word
where is a subordinating conjunction, and point out that subordinating
conjunctions join clauses to form a complex sentence. Review or
explain that a complex sentence has an independent clause and at
least one dependent clause. Review the meaning of independent and
dependent clauses.
• Brainstorm to generate a list of subordinating conjunctions, and record
them on the board. The list could include the following words: after,
although, as, because, before, since, so, though, unless, until, when,
whenever, where, while.
• Draw a vertical line before the word where to show how this complex
sentence can be divided into an independent clause (May Belle lifted
herself up sleepily from the double bed) and a dependent clause (where
she and Joyce Ann slept). Point out that even though both sentence
parts contain a subject and a verb, the dependent clause does not
express a complete thought and is not a sentence on its own.
• Independent practice: Have students identify compound and complex
sentences in the text and copy two examples of each sentence type in
their notebook. Call on students to share their examples with the rest of
the class, and record them on the board. Then have students write four
original compound and complex sentences about the book and share
them with a partner. Ask students to identify the conjunctions in each
sentence, and to identify whether the sentence is compound or complex.
Word Work: Dictionary Skills
• Invite students to share the record of words they found difficult to read,
pronounce, or understand. List words on the board. Have individuals
or student groups use dictionaries to find the definitions. Then have
students use their own words to describe to a partner the meaning
of each one.
• Independent practice: Introduce, explain, and have students complete
the dictionary skills worksheet. If time allows, discuss their answers.
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Lesson Plan
Build Fluency
Independent Reading
• Encourage students to read the book independently. Additionally,
partners can take turns reading parts of the book to each other.
• Groups of students can read aloud their favorite passages of dialogue
from the book or act out scenes for the class.
Home Connection
• Give students their book to take home to read with parents, caregivers,
siblings, or friends. Encourage them to summarize parts of the book as
they read.
Extend the Reading
Writing and Art Connection
• On the basis of the information in the story, have students draw their
interpretations of scenes in Terabithia as Leslie and Jess might have
imagined them. Encourage them to include themselves in the drawings
as a character in the kingdom of Terabithia. Have students write short
passages of fiction in which they encounter Jess and Leslie in Terabithia
and interact with them.
Science Connection
• Ask students to reread in the book the descriptions of the creek bed that
separates the farmland from the woods, noting details of how it changes
during the course of the months in which the story is set. Discuss with
students the natural causes for these changes. Ask them to reproduce
that information in visual form. Students can draw diagrams, pictures,
or even comic strips to retell the parts of the story that relate to nature.
Have students research the effects of seasons and weather on a forest
habitat as compared to a farmland environment.
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  Bridge to Terabithia Lesson Plan

Assessment Notes
Monitor students to determine whether they can: 
• accurately summarize passages or chapters during discussion
and on a graphic organizer 
• accurately analyze characters’ development during discussion
and on a worksheet

• correctly identify and create compound and complex sentences
• consistently define words using context and a dictionary during 
discussion and on a worksheet


Comprehension Check
• Retelling Rubric

• Book quiz

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