Examples Of Double Entry Journal For Mango Street

English 10 Date: _____________

Mango Street—Double Entry Journal (DEJ) Period: ____

Overview: A DEJ is a way to closely read passages from a text, to discover what individual words and sentences reveal about characters, conflicts, themes, etc. In the future, you will be selecting your own “strong lines” and meaningful passages to comment on, but for this first effort three have been chosen for you. Each passage shows something about Esperanza, her relationship to someone else in the neighborhood, and/or her opinion about a particular social issue. Link your passages to the Essential Questions: HOW DOES CHANGE AFFECT THE FUTURE?

Where does our sense of identity come from? How does environment shape our identity? What

She tells him she’s done with him and he leaves for good, taking all his things. Comes back later that night to throw a rock through a window.

Significance: Throughout the book, the motif of doors and windows is used to resemble freedom and character. Esperanza uses the phrase "out the window and the door locked" to refer to Minerva's husband's departure. Symbolically, the window and door describe Minerva's dignity, liberty, and life. When her husband leaves, her life is finally secure, hence the locked door. The rock thrown through the window by Minerva's husband represents him crashing back into her life, destroying it as he pleases.

Stylistic devices: Esperanza uses figurative language to describe Minerva, comparing her to "a house on fire- always something wrong." It shows that her troubles and sadness would continue to burn, destroying the house that is her soul.

Connections: Like before, the constant theme of doors and windows is used constantly throughout the story. For instance, in "Rafaela Who Drinks Coconut and Papaya Juice," Rafaela is a girl trapped in her home by her husband and leans out the window, dreaming for freedom. Both Minerva and Rafaela are women who are put away by their husbands, weighed down by their sadness and

It is a woman from a different country and her husband. She is called Mamacita, and she speaks no English, with the exception of a few, simple words. She is a very large woman, and she has a son. This son is only a baby, and he starts to repeat the lines of an American commercial. This upsets Mamacita because her son, only a baby, is learning English better than her. All she really wants is to go back to her country. She can't do much because she sits in her apartment, next to the window, all day.

Significance: A window is a symbol for opportunity and freedom. Mamacita "sits all day by the window and plays the Spanish radio show and sings all the homesick songs about her country in a voice that sounds like a seagull" because she it's as close as she'll ever get to freedom. The inside of the room confines her from the world and learning, but all she wants is to be on the other side of that window. There she can have the opportunity to learn English and be closer to her home. However, she can't. Plus, when her son started talking, she mumbled "No speak English, no speak English, and bubbles into tears. No, no, no, as if she can't believe her ears." Her son is surpassing her in their new home, and she doesn't want that to