As a central focus of our novel study is recognizing character development and its causes, we today examined last night's reading to locate textual examples of Omri's adopting a parental and mature attitude toward his "brought to life" plastic figure, Little Bear. I had Atticus focus on specific dialogue and we discussed how Omri, a twelve year old, sounds just like a parent . We noted in one example the author's mention that Omri even uses his father's tone of voice. I explained how to use these textual examples to support an essay thesis. I previewed how Omri's friend ,Patrick, lacks Omri's maturity.We will examine in the next chapters how that impacts their friendship. During the latter half of the session, Atticus took a quiz on chapters 7-9 of the novel.