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

The Girl With the Different Hair

Long, silky, and beautiful are just a few of the words people use to describe - not my hair.

Walking into school I see many different people with beautiful hair. Mine is dark. Mine is dirty. Mine is short.

I walk down the hallway, and I can feel the eyes burning into me; they gawk at me like I am not even human. I am the little scrawny bird hopping through a lion's cage. Everyone was on the field having fun, yet I was sitting alone.

Then, a girl with long, silky, beautiful blond hair asked me what my name was. I thought she was making fun of me. No one ever wants to talk to me. She sat down. I moved over to spare her having to ask me. She moved over again, and she started to talk to me. When we went inside, she didn't ignore me in the halls. She told other people they were mean.

The next day I walked into school, and my day seemed exactly the same. People stared. People whispered. People laughed. Far down at the end of the hallway, I heard commotion.

I saw the back of someone with short, messy, dirty, blond hair.

I tapped her on the back. She didn’t budge. I tapped again - harder this time. She turned. It was the girl who looked at me. It was the girl who sat with me. It was the girl who talked to me. She said she liked how I did my hair. And then walked off to class.

All I could do then was smile.

~ Kelsey N.

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10 comments:

  1. Mary-Shea McDowellJanuary 5, 2016 at 9:11 PM

    I love the twist at the end. Your words were also very descriptive and you continue you keep the reader engaged.

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  2. AnonymousJanuary 6, 2016 at 1:31 PM

    That's a really sweet vignette, and I love how you tie it together in the end.

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  3. AnonymousJanuary 6, 2016 at 1:38 PM

    This is such a great vignette, and I love how the the blonde girl was so kind and loving to a stranger.

    Nice job Kelsey!

    -Sofie

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  4. AnonymousJanuary 7, 2016 at 10:52 AM

    I love how the vignette starts out kind of sad and then has a happy ending.
    - Mariam

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  5. AnonymousJanuary 7, 2016 at 10:56 AM

    Great change in emotions throughout the story!

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  6. AnonymousJanuary 7, 2016 at 10:58 AM

    I like how this story differs from others because the story isn't about you and you still made up a good tale to tell

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  7. AnonymousJanuary 7, 2016 at 11:01 AM

    I like the one-liner at the end. It's a hard stop to a long train of thought.

    -Deven

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  8. AnonymousJanuary 7, 2016 at 11:01 AM

    This is really cool. The ending is so unexpected. I like it.

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  9. AnonymousJanuary 7, 2016 at 11:07 AM

    This is really good! It is very sweet and has a great moral! -Fleming

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  10. AnonymousJanuary 7, 2016 at 7:13 PM

    Great job! This tells a lot about the character without telling too much, and is overall very well-written. Who was the girl? Why didn't she talk to the main character before?

    AC

    ReplyDelete

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