In the Business of Giving: Comprehension
Giveaway: At the end of the sample questions and model answers, you can opt-in to download the entire worksheet that our upper primary students worked on this week.
* We love introducing inspirational personalities to our students. Blake Mycoskie fits the bill to a T–social enterprise meets fashionable footwear!
* Toms Shoes gives away a pair of shoes to a child in a developing country when someone in the developed world buys a pair.
* What’s more, another campaign of Toms’ helps to restore sight.
* As the year-end festive season arrives, we too hope that our students are inspired by this lesson and reach out to assist those in need–in ways big and small!
Here is a sample preview of what our students will be doing this week.
Toms Shoes: A Social Enterprise
Read the following paragraph carefully and answer the question that follows.
1. Serial social entrepreneur, Blake Mycoskie simply cannot sit still. In fact, it was because of Mycoskie’s travels that the idea for his innovative company, Toms Shoes, came about. While on vacation in Argentina, Mycoskie spent some time in several villages, where he discovered that children could not attend school not because they did not want to, but because they did not own shoes. The schools required that each child be clothed and have proper footwear before they were allowed into class.
2. Inspired to help, Mycoskie created a company–originally dubbed “Shoes for Tomorrow”–in which helping those kids, and others like them, is a central part of the business plan. For every pair of shoes Toms sells, a new pair is donated to a child in a developing country.
3. The shoes not only enable the kids to go to school, but they also prevent life-threatening diseases too. By providing footwear, Toms is helping to prevent hookworm in Guatemala. In Ethiopia, they are preventing podoconiosis, a disease that can cause the feet and legs to swell to dangerous proportions. Kids get it from walking barefoot on volcanic soil. Additionally, Toms is getting more involved in cooperating with the best doctors and clinics there, so further prevention of diseases can occur.
Sample Comprehension Questions
Answer the following questions in your own words.
1. Mycoskie realised that “children could not attend school not because they did not want to, but because they did not own shoes”. (Paragraph 1) What does this realisation suggest about the family background of the children? 1m
2. “The schools required that each child be clothed and have proper footwear before they were allowed into class.” (Paragraph 1) Explain fully why this rule is discriminatory. 2m
3. Explain the importance of shoes to children in developing countries. 2m
Model Answers
At Creative Campus, we teach students how to source for the correct answers, respond directly to the question, as well as edit their answers for grammatical and contextual accuracies.
Take a look at the model answers below.
Did you manage to get the content right?
1. They are poor/ impoverished/ do not have the means to buy shoes.
2. While schools expect their students to be suitably attired/dressed/ be representative of the school, they do not allow children who are poor to attend classes in the school.
3. Shoes are a prerequisite for educational opportunities. Shoes are also a protective measure against illness.
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