Scaffolding Lessons Using The House on Mango Street
Differentiating Lessons to Meet Students Where They Are
One of the biggest misconceptions about scaffolding is that it has to be complicated or time-consuming. But really, it’s about being intentional with how we guide students—especially when we know they’re coming in with different skill levels, confidence, and needs.
For me, small group work is one of the most effective ways to scaffold instruction, although sometimes when I first started out, I would overthink or overcomplicate things. Sometimes the small groups would start to feel repetitive and boring. But once you figure out how to modify the "small groups" and activities to keep it feeling fresh, you can use them pretty consistently.
Why Small Groups Work in My Classroom
I rely on small group work constantly in my English classes—not just because it helps me manage the room better, but because it makes students braver. Quiet students who would never raise their hand in a whole-class discussion are suddenly participating with confidence when they’re in a group of three or four.
Small group work also allows me to differentiate subtly. I can group students by readiness level and give them tasks that are just challenging enough to stretch their thinking without overwhelming them. And when it’s all grounded in the same learning goal, everyone’s doing meaningful work that moves them forward. Since all students work on the same objective, if you do things right, they won't even notice that they're grouped by ability level based on the different journeys they take to achieve the lesson objective.
Scaffolding with The House on Mango Street
Here’s how I scaffolded a lesson using pages 3–25 of Sandra Cisneros’s The House on Mango Street. If you haven't taught or read The House on Mango Street before, it's a somewhat unconventional novella length work written in poetic prose, with chapters that are vignettes illustrating different snippets of the main character, Esperanza's, world. Cisneros's style and language is an amazing launchpad for analyzing figurative language and character.
For this lesson, I will have already introduced Cisneros's style by closely reading the opening chapter with my students, and after a night of homework reading the first 25 pages on their own, students will come together to work in small groups.
For this lesson, all students are working toward the same learning target:
Analyze how Sandra Cisneros uses figurative language to characterize Esperanza and the people around her.
But each small group received a different vignette and a different set of guiding questions tailored to where they were in their understanding of figurative language and analysis.
Depending on my classes, I have up to six different group options. To keep things more streamlined, I'll go over three of the groups in this post.
Group 1: Emerging Skills
These students are just beginning, or clearly still practicing with, the concept of character traits and how to support those ideas with text evidence.
Task:
Read the vignettes “Cathy Queen of Cats” and “Our Good Day.”
List 3 character traits that describe Cathy.
For each trait, include a quote or detail from the text to support your idea.
Simple, clear, and direct—this task helps students practice identifying and supporting their ideas, without obviously requiring deep metaphorical analysis.
The beauty of working with The House on Mango Street, is students inevitably will pull up some kind of figurative language as they characterize Cathy. You're essentially tricking them into practicing with figurative language, but not confusing them with the literary vocabulary in instructions.
Group 2: Developing Analysis
These students are ready to engage with figurative language more independently and start exploring symbolism, imagery, and connotation.
Task:
Read the vignette “My Name.”
- What does calling herself and her grandmother a “horse woman” suggest?
- What might “sitting by the window” represent?
- How does Esperanza feel about her name—both in English and in Spanish?
These questions invite students to think more deeply about the text without leaving them to flounder in the fluidity of Cisneros's language. The questions focus students in on certain symbolic, metaphorical, and imagery filled details while offering them clear characters and themes to relate to.
Group 3: English Class Superstars
For students ready for layered interpretation, I ask them to examine literary devices more broadly and begin tying language to theme.
Task:
Read “Gil’s Furniture Bought & Sold.”
- Closely examine "all [the] sorts of things [that] start happening":
- What's the imagery?
- What appeals to the sense of touch?
- What are the sounds?
- What mood is created by these sensory details?
- Why does Esperanza say she’s “stupid” at the end of the vignette—and what does that reveal about her?
This task requires students to synthesize multiple elements —imagery, mood, and character— and prepares them to write more sophisticated analytical paragraphs.
Big Picture
In the end, all students use their small group discussion notes to draft analytical paragraphs. They’re learning the same skills, engaging with the same text, and working toward the same learning target—but the scaffolding meets them where they are.
You don’t have to redesign your entire curriculum or write 15 different lesson plans to differentiate effectively. With thoughtful grouping and purposeful tasks, you can keep things manageable for you and empowering for your students.
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