Potomac's eighth grade English students read and discuss The House on Mango Street by Sandra Cisneros. The book is a series of short vignettes that together capture the characters, setting, and stories of a particular neighborhood in Chicago. The vignettes are written from the perspective of a fictional narrator and are based loosely on Cisneros's own experiences as well as those of her students. Some of the vignettes are humorous or action-packed; some are heart-wrenching or shocking. All are deliberate in their use of figurative language, poetic elements, grammar conventions, and pacing.

Each eighth grader composed at least one vignette for inclusion in this digital collection. They wrote in the style of Sandra Cisneros, as they interpreted it based on their notes and our class discussions, yet they set it in a time and place of their own choosing. While some of these vignettes are based on the author's personal experience, many of them are purely fiction, an imagining of characters and circumstances that seemed ripe for this assignment. Students also used this assignment to experiment with new vocabulary words and techniques involving punctuation and sentence structure.

We encourage you to leave comments below vignettes that strike you in some way. Please keep your comments positive and specific; this is not the place for critiques or suggestions. Enjoy the creativity and vibrancy of these students' literary efforts.

Wednesday, December 24, 2014

Kiawah Gang

We call ourselves the Kiawah Gang. We are a group of friends who all have a house on a special island, Kiawah. We all met when we were little and they are my second family. There are 13 families now but we are always adding families. Some of us younger ones don’t know how we met, or how we became so close. It is still mainly a mystery that no one thinks about. We go to each others houses when we are there, we go on each others boats, we get dinner together, tan together, walk the dogs and just have fun. We all come from different states so we all have news to share. It’s fun to see that the oldest has graduated from college and the youngest is in 5th grade. From having the Kiawah Amazing Race to having our Fourth of July parties, from New Years to Thanksgiving we are the Kiawah Gang.

~ Caroline C.

3 comments:

  1. AnonymousJanuary 9, 2015 at 12:52 PM

    This is so cool! It all sounds really fun.

    ReplyDelete
  2. AnonymousJanuary 9, 2015 at 12:55 PM

    What a nice group! Nice start! Neeto!!!

    ReplyDelete
  3. AnonymousJanuary 10, 2015 at 10:19 PM

    This sounds really cool! Nice job!

    ReplyDelete

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