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

Color Blind

Climb! That’s all we did. Up the mountain. We could see the enemy below with all their weapons of mass destruction. We only had twenty minutes to set up. Bishop and Butch were below me. I pulled myself up the ledge of the cliff and they followed. I was the commanding officer so I made the calls. We found a good spot to start setting up our rifles so that we had a clear view of the enemy’s encampment. There was very little wind today. Ideal conditions for a sniper. We took a while getting ourselves camouflaged so that no one could see us. Now came the hardest part. Waiting. The ground team was hidden in the underbrush waiting for me to take the shot so they could move in. We waited for hours but it seemed like years. Finally, I heard a voice on my intercom telling me to take the shot. I looked through my scope and waited for my target to appear. After about three minutes he came out from behind a barrier and started walking towards a tent. I had a ten second window and I couldn’t blow it. I saw him through my scope and put my finger on the trigger. I took the shot. 

The green paint splattered into his facemask.

~ Kameron N.

8 comments:

  1. AnonymousJanuary 8, 2015 at 9:12 AM

    PaintBall???? DID NOT SEE THAT COMING, absolutely stellar ending

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  2. AnonymousJanuary 8, 2015 at 9:17 AM

    hahahaha

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  3. AnonymousJanuary 8, 2015 at 9:18 AM

    You did a good job of setting up a detailed scene and letting us inside the character's head.

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  4. AnonymousJanuary 8, 2015 at 9:20 AM

    Nice ending.

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  5. AnonymousJanuary 9, 2015 at 10:19 AM

    @knpaintballer that seems like a nice shot

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  6. AnonymousJanuary 9, 2015 at 10:22 AM

    Interesting concept very intriguing.

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  7. AnonymousJanuary 9, 2015 at 12:47 PM

    ^ I agree. Great concept and plot.

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  8. AnonymousJanuary 9, 2015 at 12:54 PM

    Very captivating! What an expected ending!

    ReplyDelete

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