Unit 24, Lesson 8
Answer It!
1. What is a “benny”?
1.E.4.b
Information directly stated
2. Describe the events that led Huey to attend Cubberly
High School.
3.A.6.c
Summarize or paraphrase a
portion of the text
3. Justify the team’s decision to forfeit the game.
3.A.3.d
Characters’ Motivations
Office of Language Arts Pre-K-12
DRAFT – February 2007
Unit 24, Lesson 8
4. Assess how Chris changed throughout the course of
the story.
3.A.3.d
Analyze characters
5. What was the coach’s dream? Did it come true?
3.A.6.c
Summarize or paraphrase
Office of Language Arts Pre-K-12
DRAFT – February 2007
Unit 24, Lesson 8
6. Explain the meaning of the title “Dream Team.” Use
details from the story in your explanation. 
What Do You Think?
Why Do You Think That?
3.A.6.a
Analyze main ideas and
universal themes
Answer Cues:
 At the beginning of the text the coach talks about how every basketball
coach dreams of finding a “benny” during their career and by the end of
the story he realizes that he has a whole team of “bennys.”
 In the beginning of the story, the boys on the team are very different
and seem to have their own style and their own interests, but eventually
they learn to work together and to help each other to be better players.
 When the superintendent announces that transfer students will be
ineligible for interscholastic sports, the team unanimously votes to
forfeit the game in support of their teammate Huey – even though they
will lose their record of being undefeated. This goes back to the coach’s
dream of finding even one player who will “work harder to help their
teammates experience success” and possess the “invisible quality” of an
“unselfish willingness to share the art of basketball.”
 Besides growing as people, the boys also grow as players into a “dream
team” perfecting their defense, and using their differences to their
advantage to eventually be undefeated.
Office of Language Arts Pre-K-12
DRAFT – February 2007