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Lesson 5

We will analyze a short excerpt from “A House of My Own,” an autobiographical introduction to Sandra Cisneros’s The House on Mango Street, in preparation for reading the entire introduction in Lesson 5. We will study various expressive and grammatical concepts modeled in the passage.

Lesson Goals

  • Can I use questions and a tool to do a close reading of sections of Cisneros’s introduction identified by marker quotations?

Texts

Optional

  • Tradebook
    • Excerpts from The House on Mango Street, Sandra Cisneros, Vintage Books, 2009

Materials

Tools

Question Sets

Editable Google Docs

Activity 1: Read – Write

We will read Sandra Cisneros’s introductory memoir, “A House Of My Own.” then we will write down details that stand out in the story in our Learning Logs.

Read Sandra Cisneros’s introductory memoir, "A House of My Own," from The House on Mango Street. Then, respond to the following question in your Learning Log:

  1. What stands out to you about Cisneros's story? Provide specific examples from the text.

Activity 2: Read – Write – Discuss

In reading teams, we will use questions to reread, analyze, and discuss a section of Cisneros’s introductory personal narrative. Each team will consider one of four questions, focusing on the section of text the questions address and using an Analyzing Relationships Tool to identify and analyze key details.

Step 1

Follow along as your teacher introduces and models the use of an Analyzing Relationships Tool to respond to a text-specific question related to Cisneros’s creative shifts from third to first person:

  1. Cisneros tells the story about the young woman in the photograph by switching back and forth between "she" and "I." Why do you think she might do this?

Step 2

Join a reading team.

With your team, consider one of the following questions as you reread and analyze a section of the introductory personal narrative from The House on Mango Street.

  1. What details from Cisneros’s cultural, family, and personal experiences stand out as ones that might have shaped her as a writer?

  2. What does Cisneros say about "little-little stories," her desire to write stories that "are about beauty," and her original intentions for The House on Mango Street?

  3. How does Cisneros respond to her publisher Norma’s question, "How did you do it?"

  4. Cisneros ends"A House of My Own" with the vignette about her mother’s final visit to Sandra’s house in San Antonio. Why might she have chosen to end her essay this way? What is the vignette’s impact on a reader? What evidence from the text supports this interpretation?

As a team, complete an Analyzing Relationships Tool in response to the question you have considered and the key details you have noted in your section of the text.