Instructional Objectives:
Students will be able to
- analyze how and why the author uses vignettes to tell the story of a young girl in The House on Mango Street
- analyze how girls are affected by issues of immigration such as poverty, underemployment, and discrimination
- compare this work to other books about immigration to understand how immigration affects American identity for the immigrant and for others.
Resources/Materials: The House on Mango Street by Sandra Cisneros
Time Frame: Lesson Plan One-45 minutes. Lesson Plan Two-45 minutes
Interdisciplinary Connections:
- Social Studies:
- Immigration: How does immigration affect families in terms of their economic
status? How does it affect communities? How can people rise
out of poverty? How does immigration affect women and children?
- Children's Rights: How are children affected by restrictions
on immigration, underemployment, and poverty? Are children
of immigrants more susceptible to abuses such as rape? (There
is a rape implicitly described in this book.)
- World Languages: How do people acquire a second language? Is it
important to hold on to one's first language, and how can
that be accomplished?
Lesson Plan One: The role of women in Cisneros (to be done after completing most of the book)
Pre-reading: The book is dedicated "A Las Mujeres"-to the women.
Read the biography of Cisneros that appears at the end of the book: what does it mean that she is "nobody's mother and nobody's wife?"
Activity:
- Read "My Name" (pp. 10-11). What double heritage does she receive from her great-grandmother?
- Analyze the following five sections from the book that are about women:
"What Sally Said", pp. 92-3
"A Smart Cookie," pp. 90-91
"Beautiful and Cruel", pp. 88-9
"Linoleum Roses," pp. 101-2
"The Three Sisters," pp. 103-5
- What roles for women does the narrator see in these vignettes?
- What alternate path does she seek and how? What are her views of education? Independence? Men?
- How are the women in the book tied to each other? What kinds of support do they provide for each other?
Homework:
- Journal entry: think about some of the women in your family (in your generation and in earlier generations). Choose one
or two who you think are important in your family. What roles for women do they illustrate?
- Journal entry: Closely analyze poetic techniques such as metaphor, simile, and symbolism, in one of the chapters of the book,
such as "My Name" or "Linoleum Roses." Write a vignette of your life that uses Cisneros's technique
of finding a central metaphor that unites each chapter.
Assessment: Analytical/research paper
- Research the life and work of Sandra Cisneros. What were the circumstances of her personal life when she was young, and what are they
now? Read some of her poetry or some of the stories in her book Woman Hollering Creek.
- Write an essay describing the role of the narrator in The House on Mango Street in terms of her view of women's roles. What
models for women does she see, and which does she choose? Connect the narrator's role to Cisneros's life and other works.
Lesson Plan Two: Being/Becoming an American (after finishing the book)
Initial Activity: Write down your definition of what it means to be an American
Activity: In groups, make a comparison/contrast chart between The House
on Mango Street and another work that focuses on 2nd-generation American women, such as The Joy Luck Club. Issues you might address include:
- role of women
- translating languages and cultures
- relations to friends and siblings
- relations to parents
- effects of poverty
- discrimination
- assimilation
Discussion: How has immigration changed the definition of what it means
to be an American, for those who are immigrants and for others? How has immigration enriched the definition of what it means
to be an American? What do immigrants feel about the American dream before they get here? After they arrive?
Assessment/Essay Writing Assignment:
Write an essay comparing two books by and about second-generation immigrants. How do the dreams of the second generation differ
from those of the immigrants? How do immigrants and their children adapt to American society--what kinds of responses
have replaced or been added to the assimilation that was the model for immigrants in American culture through the 1950's?
Vocabulary: Literary terms: vignette, metaphor, symbol, simile, narrator
Lesson Extensions:
Additional Readings:
- Sandra Cisneros, Woman Hollering Creek and poetry
- Gloria Anzaldua, Borderlands/Frontera: The New Mestiza: poetry and prose about being a Mexican-American woman
- Tiffany Lopez, ed., Growing Up Chicana/o: short stories on the search for identity in America
Related Internet Sites:
- http://www.custan.edu/english/reuben/pal - website of PAL,
Perspectives in American Literature: A Research
and Reference Guide, run by Paul Reuben at the University of California, Stanislaus. Contains extensive bibliography on Sandra Cisneros.
- http://www.edc.org/CCT/NDL/overview.html - American Memory Fellows Program sponsored
by the Library
of Congress. Includes background information and lesson plans on themes related to immigration.
- http://www.pbs.org/kcet/newamericans/6.0/6.0pathway.html - A variety
of lesson plans
for teachers of grades 7-12 on immigration issues. Accompanies a forthcoming series of documentaries on the lives of immigrants from
Nigeria, Dominican Republic,
and other countries, to be aired on PBS in the Spring of 2002.
- http://falcon.jmu.edu/~ramseyil/cisneros.htm - Bibliography of Internet sites
on Cisneros, including reviews,
interviews, and lesson plans
- http://nsd.k12.mi.us/~amlit/third/Sandra.htm - General information on
Cisneros, plus a poem by her about
women with her name
- http://www.ncte.org/teach/Mango.html - From a positing on the NCTE site, extended lesson
plans,
including biographical material
New Jersey Core Content Standards:
3.1.15
Speak before a group to defend an opinion and present an oral
interpretation (presentation on poem in two languages).
3.3.19 Write a research paper that synthesizes and cites data
(research paper on immigration from Mexico, essay on Cisneros's
life and work).
3.3.28 Analyze how the works of a given period reflect historical
events and social conditions (research paper on immigration
from Mexico, comparison of two works on second-generation
Americans).
3.4.31 Understand the effect of literary devices, such as
alliteration and figurative language, on the reader's emotions
and interpretation (analysis and imitation of a vignette).
3.5.14 Integrate multiple forms of media into a finished product
(storyboard).
3.5.16 Compare and contrast media sources, such as book and
film versions of a story (comparison to El Norte).
Global Citizen 2000 Modules-Core Questions Addressed:
Global Literature Module
- What are universal experiences?
How do they relate to concerns of the adolescent reader/writer?
How does geography shape/influence/impact human experience?
How does the need for story cross cultural boundaries?
How does personal experience reflect culture experience?
- How can literature help readers understand global issues?
- Where can people see global forces at work in their daily lives?
- How does the study of global literature foster empathy with others?
The Immigrant Experience in the United States Module
Children's Rights Module
World Languages Module
- How does language reflect and/or influence culture?
- How have world languages diffused and changed through history?
- How do world languages compare?
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