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The Repair Counter: From Story to Film

Compare an original neighborhood repair-shop story with its film adaptation, evaluating chronology, camera work, acting, and visual details.

Grade 8ELAInteractive · Printable

Aligned toRL.8.7

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What’s included

Single worksheet
Auto-graded online
1 Common Core standard
Printable answer key
13 questions
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Details

Format: Interactive · Printable
Grade: Grade 8
Subject: ELA
Question types: Multiple choice, Circle the answer, Sorting, Short answer

About this worksheet

What students practice

Students judge how faithfully a film adaptation preserves a story's characterization and conflict.
Students evaluate directing and acting choices using specific evidence from both versions.
Students distinguish changes that reshape meaning from changes that preserve it.

How to use

Read the story and the written film record as paired texts. Students should support evaluations with details from both; no video is required.

Curriculum

Common Core standard covered

RL.8.7

Judge how faithfully a film or live production follows the text or script, and evaluate the director's or actors' choices.

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The Repair Counter: From Story to Film

Evaluate how film choices preserve or reshape an original story.

Read both versions

Read the original story, then the record of its film adaptation. The film record describes everything needed to answer the questions.

A Counter on Alder Street

1Davin set a folding table outside his family's garage and hung a sign: NEIGHBORHOOD REPAIRS. Below it, he wrote, “Tell me what stopped working.” He had repaired his own backpack zipper and several loose drawer handles. Now he arranged those small successes like tools in his mind. His mother had agreed to the shop on one condition: no powered appliances or dangerous jobs. He placed a second sign beside the first explaining those limits.

2Mrs. Vale arrived carrying a wooden sewing box with a crooked lid. “It belonged to my sister,” she said. Davin reached for a screwdriver before she finished. Tightening things was what repair people did. But Mrs. Vale kept one hand on the box. “May I show you how it catches?” Davin put the screwdriver down. She opened the lid slowly, revealing a hinge that had shifted sideways rather than loosened.

3Across the sidewalk, two neighbors paused with their shopping bags. Davin imagined them reporting that his shop had opened with a boy staring at a box. He wanted to turn the screw simply to have something to show. Instead, he asked Mrs. Vale to move the lid again. This time, he watched the hinge instead of the neighbors. He marked its position with a pencil and adjusted it carefully. The lid settled flat.

4His next customer, Oren, brought a kitchen stool with a split leg. Davin knew how to tighten a stool's screws, but he had never repaired a split that would need to support someone's weight. He turned the stool over twice. Oren waited without speaking. Finally, Davin attached a paper tag: “Not safe to use. Needs an experienced repairer.” He offered the address of a repair business his family used. Oren took the stool and the address.

5Near closing time, Mrs. Vale returned with an empty tin for loose parts. She examined the tag Davin was copying into his notebook. “You sent a job away?” she asked. Davin explained the split leg. She nodded and set the tin beside his tools. Before folding the table, he added a line to his first sign: “We start by looking together.” Tomorrow he would have the same screwdriver and the same small store of experience. He left room beneath the new line.

Film Record: The Counter on Alder Street

1The film opens with Davin attaching the safety tag to Oren's stool. The camera shows the split leg but does not yet show the shop's signs. Oren carries the stool away without dialogue. A title then reads “Earlier that morning.” The film returns to Davin setting up his table. His mother states the restriction on dangerous jobs, and the camera briefly shows both signs. The story's opening order is therefore changed, although the stool scene later appears again in its proper place.

2When Mrs. Vale arrives, the camera stays at table height. Her hands and the sewing box fill the image while her face remains outside the frame. Davin reaches for his screwdriver. When she asks to demonstrate the problem, the actor playing Davin releases the tool and shifts his chair back to give her room. The camera holds on both pairs of hands as she moves the lid. No narration explains his thoughts. A longer shot then establishes the table's position beside the garage.

3The two neighbors stop across the sidewalk, as they do in the story. The film cuts briefly to Davin looking toward them. It then cuts to a close view of the hinge. The neighbors disappear from the frame while Mrs. Vale demonstrates the catch a second time. The actor playing Davin keeps his gaze on the moving metal. He makes the pencil mark and adjusts the hinge without another glance across the sidewalk. Ordinary street sounds continue through the repair.

4At the stool scene's second appearance, the film includes the conversation missing from the opening. Oren asks whether tightening the screws would help. Davin tests one screw, examines the split, and answers, “That won't make the leg safe.” The actor delivers the line at an ordinary volume, sets the screwdriver aside, and writes the warning tag. He hands Oren the address. Oren reads it, thanks him, and leaves. There is no applause or added customer waiting behind him.

5Mrs. Vale's return remains, but the director adds a new prop: a large sign reading “PAY ONLY FOR COMPLETED REPAIRS.” The camera gives that sign a full close-up before Mrs. Vale notices the copied warning tag. Davin explains the damaged stool, and she leaves her tin. He then adds “We start by looking together” to the original sign. The last shot shows the two signs side by side, giving the payment promise and the invitation equal space.

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