The House on Mango Street Lesson Plan: Key Ideas and Details

Grade Levels: 3-5, 6-8

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This lesson accompanies the BrainPOP topic The House on Mango Street, and supports the standard of determining a theme or central idea of a text and analyzing its development over the course of the text. Students demonstrate understanding through a variety of projects.

Step 1: ACTIVATE PRIOR KNOWLEDGE

Prompt students to share what they feel makes up a person’s identity. Ask:

  • How can a person’s experiences shape their identity? 
  • How might a person’s identity change as they grow up?

Step 2: BUILD KNOWLEDGE

  • Read the description on the The House on Mango Street topic page.
  • Play the Movie, pausing to check for understanding. 
  • Assign Related Reading. Have students read one of the following articles: “Quotables” or “Quirky Stuff.” Partner them with someone who read a different article to share what they learned with each other.

Step 3: APPLY and ASSESS 

Assign The House on Mango Street Challenge and Quiz, prompting students to apply essential literacy skills while demonstrating what they learned about this topic.

Step 4: DEEPEN and EXTEND

Students express what they learned about The House on Mango Street while practicing essential literacy skills with one or more of the following activities. Differentiate by assigning ones that meet individual student needs.

  • Make-a-Movie: Produce an interview with Esperanza in which she explains how specific symbols convey themes of The House on Mango Street. 
  • Make-a-Map: Create a concept map identifying evidence that suggests Esperanza’s feelings about her own identity.
  • Creative Coding: Code a flag symbolizing a major theme of The House on Mango Street.
  • Primary Source Activity: Listen to the excerpt from an interview with Sandra Cisneros and cite evidence to answer the accompanying questions. 

More to Explore 

Time Zone X: The House on Mango Street: Challenge students to put historical events in chronological order in this interactive timeline game.

Sortify: Writers: ​​Players sort by attributes, such as genre, time period, and more in this learning game.  

Teacher Support Resources:

Lesson Plan Common Core State Standards Alignments

Related:

    Filed as:  3-5, 6-8, BrainPOP, CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RI.3.3, CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RI.3.4, CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RI.3.7, CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RI.4.3, CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RI.4.4, CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RI.4.7, CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RI.5.3