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

Sand and Saltwater

A boring place where nothing really happens, but I still love it. My favorite place.  A brown house with white windows and no trees in front. It is in a large neighborhood a short bike ride from the beach. The house has been in my family since long before I was born. All of my cousins used to come and stay at the house in August and the Fourth of July. Now my family owns the house and our family still comes. The beach is my favorite place and where I spend my summers ever since I was a baby. My summer consists of hours at the beach with my cousins and walking around the boardwalk. We spend the day at the beach kayaking, skimboarding and spending hours in the ocean. My cousins and I chase dolphins in the kayak and sometimes we encounter the legendary skate that lives at the Henlopen Acres beach. At night we go to Funland with out friends and cousins. Funland has lots of rides, I have been on all of them. My favorite is the super flip that I was scared of until about two summers ago. One ride called the sea dragon was very intimidating to me when I was five. My older sister and all her friends who were in hugh school at the time made my sister and I go on it. we cried and were extremely scared but a few years later it was our favorite. The haunted mansion is also great ride, but usually the line is long, but we still wait. After Funland we usually get ice cream from one of the best places like kohr brother or royal treat. I love Rehoboth and all the amazing memories I have had there. My summer would not be the same without sand and saltwater.

 ~ Maddie M.

2 comments:

  1. AnonymousJanuary 9, 2015 at 12:44 PM

    #teamkohrbrother love your writing!

    ReplyDelete
  2. AnonymousJanuary 9, 2015 at 12:59 PM

    love it. Very descriptive in the beginning

    ReplyDelete

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