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

Incense

It’s not the clearest memory, but it’s enough for me to remember. At the time I was living at Episcopal High School where my father taught. There was a church just off campus that my family had always gone to on special occasions. 

The biggest special occasion was Christmas.

Every Christmas my grandparents would come to my house, and we would go to church. My grandparents are the best. Going to the church with them really makes it special. The church is big and cozy, and old. I like old things. The rule was that we came home from church, opened one present and then went to bed. That would happen every Christmas. We all held that church really close in our hearts. 

One day, my mom was watching the news and a report came on about a church that was burning down. My mom looked closer and saw that it was our family church. She called my sister and me downstairs. I looked at the church burning on the news. That was our church. I looked outside, and I saw smoke coming up, but I never went and looked at the burnt church.

A few years later I had learned that it was an accidental fire. There had been a service the day before the fire. Some incense had been used, and after the service it had been put in a garbage bin with paper in it. It was a Friday, no one was there, and they had just been lit.

The bright side in all of this was that where they had built the church all those years ago, a new church was being built. A church that would be open to all on Easter of 2015.

~ Henry P.

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