The Good Deed

Social-emotional learning: social awareness, relationship skills

how a character changes, theme, character’s motivation, inference, main idea, figurative language, vocabulary

Preview Text Features (10 minutes)

• Direct students to look at the title of the story, “The Good Deed.” Discuss the meaning of the word deed as something that is done, an action. Talk about what a good deed is. Students can share good deeds they’ve done and why they did them.     
• Point out the subheads and the Pause and Think boxes at the end of each section. Explain that the questions in these boxes will help students better understand the story. 

Introduce Vocabulary (10 minutes)

• This story includes four vocabulary words that are highlighted in bold: petrified, retired, peered, and whirled. 
• The words are defined at the bottom of the column in which they appear. Discuss the meanings of the words, looking at how they are used in the story, to help students further understand them. 
• Distribute our vocabulary activity for more practice with these words. You may also play our Vocabulary Slideshow. 
  

Set a Purpose for Reading (10 minutes)

• We have created a fiction package that helps students focus on one important aspect of the story—in this case, learning how a character changes in a story. The tasks in the Think and Read and Think and Write boxes work together to support this skill focus. Have one student read the task in each box.
• Read aloud the first Pause and Think box on page 14. These questions will check basic comprehension. (Students will delve into higher-level work with the close-reading questions.)

Reading and Unpacking the Text

• First read: Students should read the story through one time for general comprehension. Whether your students read as a class, in small groups, or independently, ask them to answer the Pause and Think questions along the way.
• Second read: Distribute the Close-Reading and Critical-Thinking questions. (For struggling readers, you can distribute the sheet of Pause and Think questions.) Preview them as a class. Have students read the story again, pausing to answer the questions.

Close-Reading Questions (30 minutes) 

• Based on the first section, why does Heather really want to help Miss Benson? (character’s motivation) She helps Miss Benson so she can get a badge from her scout troop. She doesn’t want her friends Melody and Anne to get more badges than she has.
• In “Meeting Miss Benson,” what can you tell Heather thinks about Risa? Which details help you draw this conclusion? (inference) Heather notices how messy Risa and her brothers looked. Heather also thinks that Risa looks jealous when Heather mentions that she went to Disney World. Based on the appearance of Risa and her brothers, and the fact that Risa says that they moved because her mom needed a better job, Heather may have thought their family didn’t have enough money.
• Why does Risa rush out of the apartment when Miss Benson asks her to read? (inference) Risa reads with her lips, which means she’s not a strong reader. She is embarrassed to read in front of Miss Benson and Heather, so she makes up an excuse to leave. 
• Why do you think Risa describes Heather to Miss Benson using such poetic language? (inference) Risa uses descriptive words so that Miss Benson can “see” Heather, even though she is blind.
• Why is the last section titled “A Real Good Deed”? (main idea) Heather realizes that Risa needed help with her brothers and with her reading. Her good deed of helping Risa read comes from the heart, which makes it real.

Critical-Thinking Question (10 minutes)

• How does Heather’s idea of a good deed change from the beginning of the story to the end? (how a character changes) In the beginning of the story, Heather does a good deed—reading to Miss Benson—just so that she can earn a Girl Scout badge, and to make sure that her friends don’t earn more badges than she does. At the end of the story, Heather suggests that she and Risa read to her brothers together. She genuinely wants to help Risa become a better reader.
• There’s an idiom: “You can’t judge a book by its cover.” It means you shouldn’t form ideas about someone based on the way they look. How does this apply to the way Heather saw Risa? (figurative language) Risa and her brothers looked messy when Heather saw them for the first time, so Heather decided they were unlikable. She noticed that Risa read with her lips and then made a judgment about her intelligence. As it turned out, Risa was clever, as shown by her poetic description of Heather to Miss Benson. She also realized Risa tried hard to take care of her brothers. When Heather understood what was going on with Risa and her family, she realized how wrong she was.

• Call on a volunteer to read aloud the Think and Write box at the bottom of page 19.
• Distribute our Fiction Reading Kit, which focuses on key reading skills, including our featured skill, character. Have students work in small groups to complete it.