Tableau–Journal

March 1, 2009

I have used tableau with my students.  The first time I used it this year was with Eve Bunting’s book, Your Move.  It is about a set of brothers and their decision to join or not join a gang.  The older one in the end chooses not to join eventhough he has proven himself to the gang.  He makes this choice because of the example he feels he must set for his brother–to protect him.  I had the students choose one scene from the book then choose a partner.  Each chose a character and wrote on one side of a 3 by 5 card what that character would say in that scene (we did it in their own words not using the actual words from the text) and then on the other side they wrote what they would have been thinking if they were that character.  Then they acted out the exchange with the class doing 2-3 back and forths with speaking what the character would say and then sharing what the character was thinking. 

This was a powerful tool for visualizing the characters, getting inside their heads and understanding the author’s motivations.  I chose to use this tool for the end of The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-time Indian because there was so much unsaid in the last few pages.  Writing the tableau helped me to process my own thinking as the reader.