Lesson 6

Lesson Goals

Texts

Core

• • “Introduction,” “But Sometimes What We Call ‘Memory,’” “Coyotes and the Stro’ro’ka Dancers,” excerpts from Storyteller, Leslie Marmon Silko, Viking Books, an imprint of Penguin Publishing Group, a division of Penguin Random House LLC, 2012

Optional

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

Materials

Tools

• Extending Understanding Tool

Reference Guides

• Narratives Reference Guide

Question Sets

• Telling Stories: Section 1 Lesson 6 Question Set

Editable Google Docs

• Extending Understanding Tool

• Telling Stories: Section 1 Lesson 6 Question Set

Activity 1: Discuss

We will begin the lesson with a class discussion in which we connect and compare the ideas about storytelling presented by Silko and Cisneros.

Compare and connect ideas across Sandra Cisneros’s memoir, "A House of My Own," and Leslie Marmon Silko’s introductory essay from Storyteller by developing your responses to the questions below, writing down your thoughts in your Learning Log. Support your responses with evidence from the texts.

1. How is each woman’s story about becoming a storyteller a reflection of her cultural and personal background?

2. How do the women's stories about becoming storytellers compare? What is different and what is similar?

3. From these two examples, what observations can we make about the relationships between life experiences and the stories that writers tell? What evidence from the text supports your claim?

Share your responses with the other students in a class discussion.

Activity 2: Discuss

We will learn about the narrative concept of a vignette and how to use the Extending Understanding Tool to connect and compare two texts.

Participate in a class discussion of the concept of a vignette: a short narrative scene based on personal or imagined experience. Use the Narratives Reference Guide and consider examples of vignettes you have encountered in other readings.

Follow along as your teacher introduces and explains the Extending Understanding Tool, often used to compare details and relationships in two or more texts, which you will use in the next activity.

Activity 3: Read – Write – Discuss

In jigsaw reading teams, we will read closely one of five vignettes from Cisneros’s The House on Mango Street. Then we will trace the vignette back to something Cisneros said in her introductory memoir, “A House Of My Own.”

Step 1

In this jigsaw, you will first work with your expert group (e.g., Expert Group A, Expert Group B, Expert Group C, Expert Group D, Expert Group E). As you read and analyze assigned vignettes in your expert group, you become an expert on that vignette.

Later, you will form home groups made up of experts from each expert group. In your home group, you will share your analysis of the assigned vignette from your expert group in a jigsaw discussion.

Step 2

Form Expert Groups A, B, C, and D, as assigned by your teacher.

Read and briefly discuss the vignette assigned to your team from The House on Mango Street. Think about any connections you might recall from your study of the book’s introductory memoir.

Selected vignettes from The House on Mango Street:

• "Darius and the Clouds"

• "The Family of Little Feet"

• "The Monkey Garden"

• "A House of My Own"

• "Mango Says Goodbye Sometimes"

Use the Extending Understanding Tool to trace the vignette back to something Cisneros has said in her introduction. Consider the following question to guide your reading and responses on the tool:

1. How does Cisneros’svignette from The House on Mango Street relate to an experience from her life that she recounts in her introduction?

In your group, review "A House of My Own," looking for details from the memoir that relate in some way to the story presented in the vignette.

Take notes on the Extending Understanding Tool and discuss the details with your home group. Consider how the vignette is connected to Cisneros’s experiences, and also how it imaginatively builds beyond those experiences into a fictional story.

With your expert group, develop a claim that states the relationship you have discovered between the imagined vignette and Cisneros’s personal experiences. Come up with a text-specific question you can ask other students about the connections between Cisneros’s writing and her life.

You are now an expert on the vignette assigned to your group.

Step 3

If your teacher has assigned home groups, form them now. If you are to form your own home groups, ensure that each home group has at least one expert from each expert group.

In your home group, discuss your reading team’s understanding of the vignette and its relationship to what you have found in"A House of My Own." Summarize the vignette your team has studied.

Explain the connections that you have discovered between the two texts, citing where in Cisneros’s introduction you found details related to your vignette.

Share and discuss the claim your team has developed.

Listen attentively and take notes while the other members share their understanding of the other vignettes.

In a closing discussion, compare the claims developed for the five vignettes, and consider the questions the reading teams have developed. Come up with a summary claim about the relationships between Cisneros’s experiences and the imagined vignettes she presents in The House on Mango Street.

Step 4

Move back into your expert group to share what you learned in the jigsaw discussion teams about the other vignettes and their connections to Cisneros’s introduction.

Discuss the conclusions you have reached about the relationships among personal experiences and imagined stories in Sandra Cisneros’s writing. Think about how what you have learned might be used as you tell your own stories during this unit.