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

Moving

July 1st, 2013, Moving trucks arrive to help us out of our cooped up townhouse in Chicago. We’d be heading to Virginia. 

July 1st.

The day I went to camp in Northern Wisconsin. My dad hooked up a trailer of our belongings after the moving truck pulled away the day prior, put the dogs in the car, and drove me to the bus. We said goodbye and hugged, and I put my bag on the bus and took my seat. While I was on my way to camp, my parents were driving to a new place, to a bigger house, in a cul de sac. Why do I have to move? I thought.

I could’ve just stayed put in the place I liked, at the school I loved, with the people I knew. Why me? I had the city in the palm of my hand. I knew how to get everywhere from every place. I had a close group of friends. And my family too. 

I stared blankly out the bus window and didn’t even recognize the people sitting around me. 

Then, I saw my friends! The people I went to camp with the years previously. These were the people that I spent days with sleeping in tents on canoe trips, and the ones that I played all-camp games with, the ones that stood around the fire and told stories while eating cake out of a pan. I realized then, this was my home, for now.

~ Jack D.

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