Somebody Wanted But So

My daughter is doing her book report this weekend and she needed help figuring out what the "problem" was in her chapter book: Dancing Shoes. I thought back to a workshop I had gone to about reading strategies, and told her about SWBS statements. That's Somebody Wanted But So. It worked! It's a really nifty way to help students identify the problem in a book. Just fill in the blanks:

Somebody (that's the main character)

Wanted (what... what did they want?)

But (but... what was standing in their way?)

So (so... how did they respond? What happened because of the conflict?)





In this case, Rachel had promised her dying mother that she would make sure her adopted sister Hilary went to a proper ballet school. But the guardian who they go to live with runs an exhibition show troupe and, although it is dancing, Rachel doesn't feel like it's the proper sort of dancing. What's worse, Hilary seems to love high kicks and cartwheels and couldn't care less about toe shoes and ballet. So what is Rachel going to do?