Lesson 1: Connecting across the Curriculum
Based on my planned scope and sequence for the year, this unit would follow a unit I would be doing on the fight for freedom and equality for African Americans during the Civil War and the Civil Rights Movement. To bridge this work, I am starting this unit with an excerpt from Tim O’Brien’s highly regarded Vietnam novel, The Things They Carried. Using the opening chapter of the same name, students will be introduced to elements of the object study process by considering the list of items included in the text.
Prior to reading, students will be asked to journal their thoughts about the topic: what objects are important to you and why are they important? After giving students a few minutes, students will be offered the opportunity to share with the class. Then, the teacher will explain to the students they will be reading the first chapter of a book where the author writes about important things carried by soldiers during the Vietnam War.
While reading, students will be asked to generate a list of objects, giving a brief description. After reading, the teacher will provide them with several of the items from the text and ask them to practice using the Object Study graphic organizer. Since this will be the first time students have experienced the process, students should be guided through this once with the teacher. Then, in small groups, students should choose a new object from the story and repeat the process.
Students will then use their notes to write a 1-2 paragraph description of the object, followed by their own explanation of why this object might be deemed significant.
For homework, the students should go home and spend time with the Object Study graphic organizer, filling it out for the object they chose. The students should be told they need to have the object with them as they fill out the organizer. Either that night, or another night, students should revise their original response with details based on the notes they took on the organizer. In addition, students should be asked to consider how the organizer helped them improve their writing.
Lesson # 2: A Writing Routine
Throughout the unit, students will build the practice of writing about objects daily (or several times a week due to time constraints), utilizing a collection of objects from the The House on Mango Street. I will try to align the objects with where the class is in the novel. Utilizing the work of Jennifer Stanchfield, students will write about objects through the lens of their senses. In preparation, the teacher should generate a list of objects that are focused on in the book and gather examples from a variety of places. If not possible, I would suggest utilizing pictures, but be aware this isn’t ideal as pictures of objects are not the same as the objects themselves and some of the process is lost. Modifications to the organizer should be considered.
Students will then be given time (5 to 8 minutes) to free write about the object, describing it from a sensory lens. Students will be encouraged to ignore (at least initially) grammar and sentence structure as the importance is writing itself and examining for detail.
If time permits, students should be provided the opportunity to revise these written responses as examples of informational/descriptive writing that can be utilized in other writing for this unit.
Lesson #3: House on Mango Street – Object as a Symbol
As students begin to read The House on Mango Street, the teacher will direct the students to the sensory details in the text. Using the Object Study graphic organizer, students will examine the first chapter of The House on Mango Street, giving special consideration to the house itself. While reading, students will fill out the information for the senses with, or without, the teacher.
Before they start reading, students will be asked to journal about where they live and how they feel about this location. To initiate some thoughts, students may use Google maps to locate their home to refer to a visual image of their home. Once students have had time to journal, students can share with the class their responses if they would like.
Afterwards, students will read the first chapter. While reading, students should consider what our senses may tell us about objects and how this may help us make a deeper meaning connection to the writer’s work. As a part of this, it will be important to link the writing between the journaling done throughout the unit, examining the objects that are symbolic in the story.
Alternatively, students could be expected to do this work independently as a pre-assessment for the unit. At the end of the unit, the teacher could have students refer back to this graphic organizer and compare it to the one completed on the material houses on Mango Street that they and their classmates have created. It would also be an opportunity to engage in some metacognition work by considering how much easier it was to fill the organizer out for a material object in comparison to just written text.
Lesson #4: Object Study
After examining the house itself, students should repeat this progress throughout the book considering significant symbols like (a) shoes, (b) the woman in the window, (c) clouds, (d) home, (e) cars, and others pre-generated by the teacher or gathered by the class as time goes on. To further embed material in their study, students should be provided access to the objects they are studying. For this sample lesson, the focus will just be on the woman in the window and shoes.
In Chapter 4, “My Name,” students should examine the image of the woman in the mirror, represented by Esperanza’s grandmother, and other women who have had their freedom controlled. This image is also on the cover of the editions of the book my class uses. Students will first be directed to consider why the author chose to put this image on the cover of the book. We will then fill out the graphic organizer while using the classroom windows. In addition, weather permitting, students will go outside and stare outside and see how their perspective of the window, whether indoors or outdoors, changes their understanding of the window as a symbol.
Throughout the book, there are several more times where there are women in windows, either directly (“Rafaela Who Drinks Coconut & Papaya Juice on Tuesdays”) or indirectly (“No Speak English,” “Marin”). This initial work should be referred back to when considering those moments when the image of a woman in the window returns.
Later, students should examine how the shoe as a symbol can take on different meanings in different parts of the story. Students should repeat the object study notes and response for the chapters “The Family of Little Feet” and “Chanclas.”
For “The Family of Little Feet,” students should consider what objects are important for coming of age. Students will be familiar with high heels as a rite of passage as many girls will wear them for the first time to graduation. Additionally, driver’s licenses, confirmation gifts, diplomas, etc. will be recognized as important symbols that someone is an adult. The teacher should provide objects listed above for students to hold while they write about it.
After reading “Chanclas,” students should compare their original notes on the Object Study graphic organizer for “The Family of Little Feet” to their new one. Students should write a 1-2 paragraph response explaining how the author used the symbols differently and what techniques were employed to achieve this difference.
Over the course of the unit, students will do this 2 to 3 times with other objects they choose. They will use the Object Study graphic organizer and write descriptive paragraphs about the object in addition to an explanation of why this object may be important.
Lesson #5: Dangers of Object Collection
When students approach the chapter “Gil’s Furniture Bought & Sold,” they will pause reading The House on Mango Street. Instead, they should read the September 1, 2013, Scientific American article “Hoarding Can Be a Deadly Business.” In a modern world where influencers like Marie Kondo advocate for a simpler life, examining the very real condition of hoarding and applying their understanding to the owner of “Gil’s Furniture Bought & Sold” will allow students to see another side of material culture.
Before reading the article, students will describe what they think hoarding is in 1-2 minutes. Afterwards, students will be provided with 3-6 images and asked to write down what they see in each image. Students will then utilize these new notes to expand upon what they initially wrote about in their original response about hoarding.
If time permits, the teacher can show a short clip from the show Hoarders.
After reading, students will respond to the prompt: do you think hoarding is a serious issue? In their response, they will utilize the writing they already did in the opening activity as well as the article to write their argumentative response. The images used in the opening activity can also be used as evidence in their response.
Lesson # 6: Object Biography
For the first part of this lesson, students will generate a biography of Sandra Cisneros by examining multiple resources, mostly other biographies about the author. Students will access information on Sandra Cisneros from the Chicago Public Library, Women’s History, and Cisneros’s own website. These can be found under the student readings below. Students will identify key details about her life and generate their own biography of her. This should be either guided by the teacher or done in small groups in order to allow students time to develop their understanding of biographical writing.
Once they have written Cisneros’s biography, students will generate an object biography for one of the objects in the book. Utilizing details from Object Study graphic organizers generated throughout the unit, students should choose one object to write a longer biography of. They should consider the history of the object and how it was used. They can choose from a variety of options: (a) first-person perspective of the object, (b) first-person perspective of someone who used the object, (c) third-person, as in a true biography, or (d) a creative option that they generate themselves.
When writing, they should utilize some of the details from their earlier writing. As a part of this lesson, it will be important to review the differences between descriptive writing and biographical writing as students tends to get stuck in one mode.
Upon completing the activity where the students compare the two types, they will then write their object biography. Students will generate 1-2 pages of a biography for their object and consider descriptive language.
After a first draft is done, students should be provided the opportunity to peer review their writing, identifying 1-2 places where their fellow student could expand upon an idea with more details.
Lesson # 7: Creating the House on Mango Street
As a creative cumulating project, students will be encouraged to create a model of the house on Mango Street. Using a basic shoe box, students will build the rooms in the house, taking into consideration the personality of the characters and important symbols. Students will be provided time in class, in addition to outside class time, to create this material representation of the house on Mango Street.
After the students complete the tangible project, they will be required to write a one-page paper on their object, describing what they included, how they created it, and why they felt it was important to include this in their project.
Lesson # 8: Gallery Walk
Students will display their houses in a large enough area so that they can comfortably walk around to view others. Then, students will use their Object Study graphic organizer to examine their classmates’ work. A deeper intention of this type of assignment is to show students that their work should be examined the same way we examine the work of the writers we read in class. They should do this for 2-3 projects so that everyone’s project receives similar feedback.
Once the students are done, they should use the graphic organizer to explain in what ways their classmates did well on generating the houses on Mango Street. Students should consider what symbols were used by their peers in generating these physical representations as well as why the writer thinks they are important. It will be an opportunity for the creators of the houses to see if their message came through with the materials they created.
Projects and graphic organizers should both be submitted for final grading.
Extension Lesson #1: Object Study in Real Life
I will more than likely be engaging in this work towards the end of the year when my school arranges field trips to the Peabody Museum of Natural History in New Haven, Connecticut. It will be important to link that trip to the work being done in class by reaching out to the museum to see how they can engage in object study as it relates to immigrant communities, especially to the Mexican-American community central to The House on Mango Street. On the trip, students will engage in using the Object Study graphic organizer to determine the use and purpose of the objects on display.
