As we will be spending some time visiting Mango Street & it's colorful neighborhood, we might as well have a place to sit & look around.  So, get comfy & check out some of these links about The House on Mango Street & Sandra Cisneros.  Also, get the directions for our Project from the link below.

HoMS Home Makeover Project

• ClassicNotes' site on "HoMS" - scroll down to the bottom of the page for other jump points, including a Message Board.
  

• SparkNotes' site - use the "Choose" boxes to the left of the page to
  find particular topics, or click on the at the top or bottom of the pages.
  

• Springfield HighSchool's site on the novel - info on the author's style & feminist issues.
  

• Random House's site - the book's publisher's site offers info for students & teachers.
  

  • Voices From The Gap  -  a site on women writers from many ethnicities.
    

    • A resource site  -  has many links to other Cisneros & Mango St. sites.
      

      • One last site on our beloved novel - this one provides lessons for ESL teachers.

Thank you, Sandra.

The House on Mango Street
Home Makeover Project

Sandra Cisneros’s novella The House on Mango Street, is filled with creative & colorful images of people and places.  In the first chapter, or vignette, the narrator provides brief, yet vivid, descriptions of three different homes:  her past home on Loomis, her current home on Mango Street, and her dream home for the future. 

Your task will be to “makeover” one of these homes.  Read the descriptions in the text carefully and visualize each home by adding your own details and images to complete each home.  Then, decide which home you would want to “makeover”.  Finally, you will be required to create a visual representation of your visualization of one of these homes. 

Your “Home Makeover Project” is to create a drawing, model, blueprint, or similar visual representation of one of the three homes described in THoMS’s first vignette.

The due date for this project is Nov. 16-17.  It will be worth two grades based on the following criteria:

• Accuracy to the description of the text & addition of relevant details and missing aspects of the home
• Creativity and quality of the completed project

Good luck with your home-building task, & show us an impressive vision of ‘your’ home.

                Personal Portrait Writing Project    

Rationale:  Through our study of Sandra Cisneros’ The House on Mango Street, we discover a vivid portrait of one character, Esperanza.  Cisneros reveals many aspects of this character by writing detailed and colorful vignettes about her life.  In this assignment, you will also write short, detailed, and colorful vignettes about your life.  When collected together, these vignettes will present an original and colorful portrait of who you are today.

Task:  You will write a collection of at least eight vignettes that will work together to create a personal portrait about who you are today.  These different vignettes (or chapters to your “book”) will each focus on one single aspect of your life, and express that thing about you in detail.  Possible topics for different vignettes might be:

• One interesting or strange character in your family or neighborhood

• A good friend of yours and how they have affected your life

• An event that happened in your childhood that was embarrassing

• Something that made you feel extremely happy or sad

• Describe your neighborhood in detail

• What you think about when you are alone, or scared, or worried, or excited, or in love

• A place that you visited that made you feel different about your life & home

• Something that is unique to your culture or your family

• Anything else that might be unique about you, or typical of you

Whatever you decide to write about, be sure to focus on how you write about it.  Your writing style, detailed descriptions, figurative language, and personal expression are what will make your “book” interesting and beautiful.  Make your writing colorful, creative, and original; not just like a letter to a friend or a cute little story.  Then, finally, arrange the ‘chapters’ to your ‘book’ in a logical order, and bind it into a beautifully packaged product that will represent your vivid & colorful life.

Deadlines:  One completed vignette will be due on March 4.  The remainder of the vignettes, along with the completed project, will be due after Spring Break.  Final due date for the project is March 29.  There will be class time provided for this writing process, including peer editing, self-revision, and rewriting.  In addition to writing in class, you will have homework after every class for the next weeks in the form of perfecting your vignettes. 

Grading:  This assignment will make up a large part of your grade for the 4th 9-week period.  Several grades will be given for your work throughout the writing process, and the end product will be weighted heavily.  Therefore, be sure to complete it on time, and be creative, poetic, and precise with your writing to paint a beautiful & vivid portrait of your life.