Cisneros, Sandra. (1983). House on Mango Street. Houston: Arte Publico Press. 103pp. Esperanza describes her life in a poor Latino neighborhood in Chicago.

Santiago, Esmerelda. (1993). When I Was Puerto Rican. Reading: Massachusetts: Addison-Wesley. 274pp. A memoir of a Latino growing up in America.

Lee, Gus. (1991). China Boy: a Novel. New York: Dutton. 322pp. An adolescent boy struggles with cultural conflict.

Tan, Amy. (1989). The Joy Luck Club. New York: Putnam. 288pp. Young Chinese women make their way through the quagmire of a combined Chinese and American lifestyle.

Morrison, Toni. (1970). The Bluest Eye: a Novel. New York: Holt, Rinehart, and Winston. 164pp. Addresses the hierarchy of color in the African-American culture as perceived by some African-Americans.

Lowry, Lois. (1989). Number the Stars. Boston: Houghton Mifflin. 137pp. The Johannesen family hides Jewish friends until the friends can escape to Sweden.

Chin, Marilyn. (1994)."The Floral Apron." The Phoenix Gone, The Terrace Empty. Minneapolis, Minn.: Milkweed Editions. 97pp. A poem that depicts Chinese-American youngsters watching an elder prepare squid. Their reactions change from revulsion to reverence.

Rosario, Nelly. (2002). Song of the Water Saints. New York: Pantheon. 245pp. The tale of girl stuck in the Dominican Republic in the time of political oppression.

Teaching Ideas

(1) "A Very Short Story" For use with"The Jacket" and"Eyes and Teeth" (the shorter short stories)

Students are to write a short story or a postcard short story using"The Jacket" and"Eyes of Teeth" as models. Stories should be no more than one to two pages in length and should include one or more characters, setting, plot action with a crisis and a climax, a resolution, and employ irony ("Eyes and Teeth" would serves as an excellent example for this last criterion).

Students learn to choose details carefully, tighten their sentences, and getting their reader interested by introductions, as well as learn about irony through their writing.

Students brainstorm for the elements in the story and create a rough draft.

Students provide feedback of each others'stories.

[Summarized/adapted from "The Post Card Short Story" by Ellen, Zaki in Classroom Notes Plus. Urbana, IL: National Council of Teachers of English. April 1999, p. 7.]

(2) "Analyzing Style" Either of the following activities are applicable to all the short stories

Have students choose a passage from one of the short stories they have read. Students should rewrite it in another style. They might choose to rewrite"The Jacket" in a very formal tone, for example, or "The Bag of Oranges" in a jargon-filled/technical tone. Ask students to be consistent through the entire story. Make sure kids write an author's note at the end explaining their writing process and the particular difficulties they had in rendering the story in a different tone.

Have students choose three paragraphs from a story or novel (averaging at least 15 words per paragraph), and analyze the stylistic choices that the author has made. They may start by taking some notes on the purpose of the passage by summarizing the passage and outlining its significance. Next, have students think about the way the author has used style to make a point or emphasize a detail. What words or phrases are repeated? What sentence structures are used? How would they label the text—formal? Or informal? Objective? Chatty? Have students write a paper that analyzes the style that the author uses. They should identify both the stylistic elements that the author uses and their relationship to the characters involved and/or to the main point of the story.

[Summarized/adapted from "Traci's List of Ten" by Traci Gardner in Classroom Notes Plus. Urbana, IL: National Council of Teachers of English. January 2000, p. 22.]

(3) "Idea Grids" Students may work in groups, partners, or individually. Give students several copies of a full-page, three-column grid:

Before	Turning Point	After

Initially students can use the grid to graphically organize a turning point in their own lives (it helps to start with the after section and then go backward). Then students can use the grid to trace the growth of a character in a story, explore alternative endings of the short story, or bring closure to more open-ended stories.

[Summarized/adapted from "The Value of Idea Grids" by Kim Ballard in Classroom Notes Plus. Urbana, IL: National Council of Teachers of English. August 2002, pp.8-9.]

(4)"Movie Version" Ask students to think through the movie version of one of the short stories. Students might write individual pieces outlining how they would produce their movie version, groups might work together to outline their production plan, or students might actually script a section of their version. Students can work with range of kids of movies for the same reading. One group might decide to do a big blockbuster version, a Disney version, a PBS version, or a"made-for-TV" version. They choose real-life actors, settings from their community/school, and appropriate music. After they've completed their outlines, students can compare their versions in class discussion.

[Summarized/adapted from "Traci's List of Ten" by Traci Gardner in Classroom Notes Plus. Urbana, IL: National Council of Teachers of English. January 2000, p. 22.]

(Review written by Janet Barrera and edited by Jennifer E. Moore)