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

It Didn't Matter

Watching the ping pong ball go back and forth across the table, I caught glimpses of the German batteries, our parents, and Philippe -- the model French citizen with the largest and greasiest handlebar mustache anyone has ever seen. His large red face watched us the entire time, with a small, creepy smile.


The girl who came with us, from the school that’s close but too far away, the one who used two paddles and kept her arms in 90 degree angles, made it all about herself; screaming, laughing too loud, making sound effects that didn’t match up with the actions being done -- but today, it didn’t matter. The light beach air drifting in from Omaha Beach picked up all emotions of old animosity and carried them off towards the fields of yellow canola flowers. The girl’s older brother, who also goes to the close and far away school, who was actually really good at ping pong, hit the ball back and forth, back and forth, back and forth, and just when you got used to the rhythmic tapping, just when you could close your eyes and predict when the ball would hit the table, it would stop. The net would catch the ball or the two paddles would fail the girl and the ball would fly off the table. Normally, the sudden stop in something constant would bother me, but it didn’t bother me. Today, it didn’t matter. The other boy was one year older than the boy who was really good at ping pong, who was the girl with two paddles’ brother. He looked like a watercolor painting by the most talented artist in the world. He kept taking pictures of Philippe’s mustache without asking him, and this would usually set me off, but today, it didn’t matter.

A group of French teenagers were sitting at a nearby table and started laughing at our loud, non-rule abiding ping pong game, and I knew that when the French start laughing at you you’re doing something horribly wrong, but today, it didn’t matter.

~ Sarah S.

2 comments:

  1. AnonymousJanuary 8, 2015 at 9:11 AM

    This is so descriptive and I love your word choice! The part about the rhythmic ping pong ball is so well written.

    ReplyDelete
  2. AnonymousJanuary 8, 2015 at 9:24 AM

    I like how you made it really easy to picture, especially in the last paragraph

    ReplyDelete

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