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

Apple iMac

Tick. Tock. Tick. Tock.

The repetitive ticking of the clock fills the room. I watch the red minute-hand go around and around.

Finally, a bell sounds, marking the end of class. The hallways flood with students rushing to get to their lockers and get home for summer break.

I should be happy, a three month hiatus from the daily grind of school has just begun. But I’m not. True, summer is stress free and I can relax all day, every day, but I don’t get to see any of my friends for a long time.

On the bright side, I don’t have to see them anymore. They are the bane of my existence in school. I hop on the bus and wait to get home.

The weeks pass, but I don’t even know what day it is, they all just blend together in a blur as my summer whizzes past.

July 4th has just passed, and we are driving to my grandparents’ commodious house to visit for a week. Anyone can tell that I’m so very definitely looking forward to a week without television, my phone (which broke four days ago), or a computer. The closest thing that they have to a computer is an old Apple II. An Apple II. They are so inept with technology. My iPhone is like, a million times better than that.

As we approach their house, the sound of sirens grows. We turn the corner onto their street. We see fire rescue. Police. Paramedics at their house. Or at least, where their house used to be. We get out of the car, and rush to the first responders to see what’s going on.

They say that the house burned down in a fire just a few minutes ago, and that no one was able to enter the inferno.

We book a room at the nearest hotel so that we can stay updated with the news. As we are sitting in our room, trying to get over this strait, while my mom is crying and my dad is consoling her while trying not to cry himself, I realize how much I regret not wanting to go see my grandparents. I realize that, even though there would have been no modern technology (I swear, these people are living in the stone age!), I would still have been able to just see them again and talk to them and enjoy our time together.

A few days pass, and after a closer inspection by the fire department, the cause of the fire was not arson. Candles. A stove left running. A lit cigarette. A washing machine (I don’t even think they own one of those). None of those things killed my grandparents. But a gas leak did, paired with a spark. From a brand new Apple iMac.

~ Nik G.

Labels:

6 comments:

  1. NicholasJanuary 5, 2016 at 9:12 AM

    I like how at first you are mad about how your grandparents don't have up-to-date technology, but when they finally get a Mac, it ends up burning their house down and causes your family so much pain.

    ReplyDelete
  2. AnonymousJanuary 6, 2016 at 10:15 AM

    This comment has been removed by the author.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. AnonymousJanuary 6, 2016 at 10:16 AM

      I think that you employed situational irony well when you stated that your grandparents lived in the stone age when it came to technology, and then it was a new apple computer that killed them.

      Delete
    2. AnonymousJanuary 6, 2016 at 10:46 AM

      Thanks!

      Delete
  3. AnonymousJanuary 6, 2016 at 10:40 AM

    I really liked this one. Even in such a short piece you were really able to show character development, and your use of situational irony made the story really fun to read.

    ReplyDelete
  4. AnonymousJanuary 7, 2016 at 11:09 AM

    That sounds terrible! But I appreciate the irony.

    ReplyDelete

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)