Something Beautiful

By: Sharon Dennis Wyeth

Fiction

(free choice)

The little girl in this story looks out her window and the area around which she lives and longs to see beyond the trash and graffiti.  At school her teacher writes the word "beautiful" on the board, and the girl decides to look for something beautiful in her neighborhood.  At the diner Miss Delphine serves the girl her "beautiful" fried fish sandwich.  Mr. Lee offers her an apple from his "beautiful" fruit store.  She visits several people and they tell her what is beautiful to them.  She then goes back home to think and she decides that beauty is all around her and she begins to pick up the trash and clean the writing off the walls.

After reading this story out loud to my class I would have them think about something that is "beautiful" to them, and I would have them write about that in their journal.  Then as a class we would brainstorm ways that we could make our school more beautiful, and hopefully be able to carry out some of those actions within the school.