Home, Culture, and Identity: Coming of Age in Sandra Cisneros’ The House on Mango Street
Sandra Cisneros’ The House on Mango Street tells the story of twelve-year-old Esperanza through a series of vignettes. Throughout the novel, Esperanza explores her identity, culture, and the neighborhood that surrounds her parent’s first house on Mango Street. In this unit students will practice writing to express their ideas and explore their own identities, analyze central themes in the novel, and identify the elements of a vignette and coming-of-age story. Ultimately, at the end of this unit students will be able to make connections between the text and their own life experiences.
Essential Question(s) / Big Idea for the Unit:
What shapes my identity? What is the purpose of storytelling and how can telling my own story empower me and others?
When I first designed this unit, I was very excited to introduce this novel to students. I felt that the short vignettes would make reading accessible to my ELL students, and capture the attention of those who had convinced themselves they hated reading. I imagined that the similarities between Esperanza’s neighborhood and the Main South area of Worcester (where many of my students and their families reside) would foster great classroom discussions and interest. Luckily, my hopes for this unit became a reality. My ELL students were able to engage with and understand the novel, and they also had access to a Spanish translation of the text. Other students enjoyed the short vignettes as they felt regular chapter books were often too long.
I was most surprised with the classroom discussions that were encouraged by our reading of this text. Though this unit focused on home, culture and identity, students were intrigued by the issues of racism and sexism that Esperanza and other characters in the novel experience. Furthermore, as students learned to make connections between the text and their life experiences they were able to gain a better of understanding of the novel and became encouraged to write and tell their own stories. Lastly, I believe that our classroom discussions and student’s individual reading of the text allowed them to answer our essential questions.
