Sample Lesson 1:

Assignment #1

Use the story below (“My Name” by Sandra Cisneros) as a model to create your own
description of your name. I would like for each of you to write your own “My Name” piece.
This will help me to get to know you all.

*If you would like to be called something other than what is listed on the attendance sheet,
please use this assignment to inform me.

Below are some questions that may help you in writing your own “My Name” piece:

1. What is your whole name?

2. What is the meaning of the words in your name?
3. Were you named after someone? If so, how do you feel about the person? What is that
person’s relation to you? What do you admire about that person?
4. What do you dislike?
5. What are your nicknames and why have you been given them?
6. Do you wish you had been named something else? If so, what? Why?
7. Would you ever change your name?
8. Play with the sounds in your name. Repeat them several times. Do the sounds remind
you of other words or of certain images?

You do not have to answer all of these questions but use them to guide your writing. Be
sure to write at least one page (double spaced).

↓↓↓↓↓↓↓
“My Name” by Sandra Cisneros excerpted from The House on Mango Street

In English my name means hope. In Spanish it means too many letters. It means
sadness, it means waiting. It is like the number nine. A muddy color. It is the Mexican
records my father plays on Sunday mornings when he is shaving, songs like sobbing.

It was my great-grandmother's name and now it is mine. She was a horse woman too,
born like me in the Chinese year of the horse--which is supposed to be bad luck if
you're born female-but I think this is a Chinese lie because the Chinese, like the
Mexicans, don't like their women strong.

My great-grandmother. I would've liked to have known her, a wild horse of a woman, so

wild she wouldn't marry. Until my great-grandfather threw a sack over her head and
carried her off. Just like that, as if she were a fancy chandelier. That's the way he did it.

And the story goes she never forgave him. She looked out the window her whole life,
the way so many women sit their sadness on an elbow. I wonder if she made the best
with what she got or was she sorry because she couldn't be all the things she wanted to
be. Esperanza. I have inherited her name, but I don't want to inherit her place by the
window.

At school they say my name funny as if the syllables were made out of tin and hurt the
roof of your mouth. But in Spanish my name is made out of a softer something, like silver,
not quite as thick as my sister's name Magdalena--which is uglier than mine. Magdalena
who at least- -can come home and become Nenny. But I am always Esperanza. Would like
to baptize myself under a new name, a name more like the real me, the one nobody sees.
Esperanza as Lisandra or Maritza or Zeze the X. Yes. Something like ZeZe the X will do.
Sample Lesson 2:

Ideas for how to respond to a passage, quote, or article (note that some of these types of
responses work really well for certain pieces and others really don’t. Use your judgement):

1. Use it as a model to write your own version of the whole thing.

2. Support or challenge the author’s claims with your own information/reasoning.
3. Identify techniques or strategies you noticed the writer uses and the effects they
have.
4. Pick a line, write it down, and use it to extend your thinking. Just let the writing
flow.
5. Write about anything the piece inspires you to think about.

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1) A quote or passage to respond to in writing.

2) A question to respond to in writing.

Choose a subject that is not currently taught in school. Why should it be taught? What
type of person should teach it? Why would or wouldn’t you want to take the class?
3) Choose one reading to respond to.

Photos of the Week: Masked Monks, Windmill Walk, Birthday Parade

https://www.theatlantic.com/photo/2020/04/photos-of-the-week-masked-monks-windmill-
walk-birthday-parade/609349/

How Trans And Nonbinary People Are Coping Right Now

https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/pdominguez/trans-nonbinary-people-coronavirus

College Made Them Feel Equal. The Virus Exposed How Unequal Their Lives Are.
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/04/us/politics/coronavirus-zoom-college-classes.html

I’m An Immigrant. Here’s What You Don’t See On ‘90 Day Fiancé.’
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/immigrant-experience-90-day-
fianc%C3%A9_n_5e21d894c5b674e44b973fe6

My College Graduation Was Canceled and I Feel Guilty Being Heartbroken About It
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/college-graduation-canceled-
coronavirus_n_5e820aa9c5b6cb9dc1a43a93