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.

Thursday, December 17, 2015

New Jersey

I wasn’t supposed to be here. I just got on the wrong bus and now I’m here, in New Jersey. I live in Virginia… yeah. See mom, this is why you don’t take my phone before I go to wherever I’m going. This time it was the grocery store. God, and now the milk will be spoilt. Mom is gonna kill me.

As I look around trying to find someone whose phone I can borrow, I see someone that looks strangely familiar. He looks at me. His eyes widen. He turns and runs. Did I scare him away?

Man, that guy looks very familiar, and kind of like me. I’m now just pondering how I could know this guy, my mind isn’t even on getting home. I just want to know who that guy is. I would give anything to know, and I don’t even know why I want to realize who he is so much.

Ok I just need to get my mind back on getting to the home.

Finally, I get my mind back on the prize and start looking for someone who doesn’t look like... I find someone whose phone I can borrow, and my mom says she’ll be there as fast as she can, and that she’s really mad at me, but she still loves me.

Six hours later I arrive home, but I can’t shake the feeling I know that guy. The next morning, I wake up and realize that it was my supposedly dead father.

~ Jack Sa.
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4 comments:

  1. AnonymousJanuary 6, 2016 at 8:29 AM

    I liked the situational irony and the end.-SS

    ReplyDelete
  2. AnonymousJanuary 6, 2016 at 8:54 AM

    I did not see the ending coming at all. You did a really job keeping me hooked. DA

    ReplyDelete
  3. AnonymousJanuary 6, 2016 at 10:52 AM

    Very interesting twist ending, good use of situational irony. I also liked the bit of comedy and the beginning.
    NG

    ReplyDelete
  4. Michael JohnsonJanuary 6, 2016 at 1:39 PM

    Completely a surprise ending.

    ReplyDelete

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