Sandra Cisneros's The House on Mango Street offers a rich tapestry of themes, characters, and literary devices, making it a versatile text for classroom exploration. To help students connect deeply with the material, here are ten activities that blend creativity with critical thinking.

1. ✍️ "My Name" Personal Vignettes

After reading the vignette "My Name," encourage students to write their own pieces reflecting on their names' meanings, origins, and personal significance. This activity fosters self-exploration and mirrors Cisneros's introspective style.

2. 🎨 Visualizing Mango Street

Have students create visual representations of Mango Street, drawing inspiration from the text's descriptions. Whether through drawings, digital art, or dioramas, this activity helps students visualize the setting and its impact on the narrative. (I have prompts for "characterizing the Mango Street neighborhood" on the last page of the in-class small group presentations activity you can view for free here.)

3. 🧩 Character Trait Charts

Develop character trait charts for key figures in the book. Students can list traits, provide textual evidence, and discuss how these characters contribute to the overarching themes. I have a number of free activities that support students in characterization in the early pages of the text here.

4. 🎭 Role-Playing Vignettes

Assign groups different vignettes to act out. This dramatization aids in comprehension and allows students to explore characters' motivations and emotions.

5. 📝 Figurative Language Scavenger Hunt

Cisneros's writing is rich in figurative language. Organize a scavenger hunt where students identify metaphors, similes, and personification throughout the text, discussing their significance in context. If you want to go deep with allusion and imagery, I have a free lesson that ties in "The Walrus and the Carpenter" to "Edna's Ruthie" here. You can mix things up by showing students "The Walrus and the Carpenter" from Alice & Wonderland first to activate their connections with visual imagery and theme.

6. 📚 Comparative Literature Circles

Introduce short stories or poems that share themes with The House on Mango Street. In literature circles, students can compare and contrast these works, deepening their understanding of universal themes. The lesson plan above includes works by Maya Angelou and Audre Lorde :).

7. 🗣️ Socratic Seminars on Key Themes

Facilitate Socratic seminars focusing on themes like identity, gender roles, and cultural expectations. Encourage students to support their viewpoints with textual evidence. I would sometimes do a mini fishbowl discussion to help students practice with the format and collectively answer the questions in this section of the text. And usually by the end of our unit on The House on Mango Street, students can prepare for a fishbowl discussion on their own.

8. 🖼️ Symbolism Collages

Students can create collages representing symbols found in the book, such as windows, shoes, or houses. This visual activity reinforces the symbolic layers of the text.

9. 📖 Author Study: Sandra Cisneros

Delve into Cisneros's background and other works. Understanding her experiences can provide students with context, enriching their interpretation of the novel.

• 40th Anniversary of The House on Mango Street at the National Book Festival
• How Anger Helped Cisneros Write her Book
• Britannica on Sandra Cisneros
• Library of Congress on Sandra Cisneros
• NPR Interview with Cisneros about her memoir, A House of My Own

10. 🧠 Reflective Journaling

Throughout the unit, have students maintain journals reflecting on their personal connections to the text, questions that arise, and evolving interpretations. I have some tailored journal prompts that I use as activators for certain sections of the text on my House on Mango Street unit site here (you'll have to explore a bit).

By integrating these activities into your lesson plans, you can create a dynamic and immersive experience that resonates with students. I often like to teach The House on Mango Street early on in the year to lay a foundation for rich literary analysis and analytical writing in English class, but sometimes the books just aren't available. If I'm teaching the text later in the year and students are already demonstrating mastery of language analysis and writing, to keep things fun and engaging, I'll pull some of the lessons described here.

Want lesson plans to my four favorite high engagement lessons from this post?