Directions: As you read, highlight important passages.
Annotate each chunk (main idea, agree/disagree, or connection)
Answer questions on page 2
House on Mango Street by Sandra Cisneros
We didn't always live on Mango Street. Before that we lived on Loomis on the third floor, and before that we lived on Keeler. Before Keeler it was Paulina, and before that I can't remember. But what I remember most is moving a lot. Each time it seemed there'd be one more of us. By the time we got to Mango Street we were six—Mama, Papa, Carlos, Kiki, my sister Nenny and me.
Chunk 1 annotation:

The house on Mango Street is ours, and we don't have to pay rent to anybody, or share the yard with the people downstairs, or be careful not to make too much noise, and there isn't a landlord banging on the ceiling with a broom. But even so, it's not the house we'd thought we'd get.
Chunk 2 annotation

We had to leave the flat on Loom is quick. The water pipes broke and the landlord wouldn't fix them because the house was too old. We had to leave fast. We were using the washroom next door and carrying water over in empty milk gallons. That's why Mama and Papa looked for a house, and that's why we moved into the house on Mango Street, far away, on the other side of town.
Chunk 3 annotation

They always told us that one day we would move into a house, a real house that would be ours forever so we wouldn't have to move each year. And our house would have running water and pipes that worked. And inside it would have real stairs, not hallway stairs, but stairs inside like the houses on TV. And we'd have a basement and at least three washrooms so when we took a bath we wouldn't have to tell everybody. Our house would be white with trees around it, a great big yard and grass growing without a fence. This was the house Papa talked about when he held a lottery ticket and this was the house Mama dreamed up in the stories she told us before we went to bed.
Chunk 4 annotation

But the house on Mango Street is not the way they told it at all. It's small and red with tight steps in front and windows so small you'd think they were holding their breath. Bricks are crumbling in places, and the front door is so swollen you have to push hard to get in. There is no front yard, only four little elms the city planted by the curb. Outback is a small garage for the car we don't own yet and a small yard that looks smaller between the two buildings on either side. There are stairs in our house, but they're ordinary hallway stairs, and the house has only one washroom. Everybody has to share a bedroom—Mama and Papa, Carlos and Kiki, me and Nenny.
Chunk 5 annotation

Once when we were living on Loomis, a nun from my school passed by and saw me playing out front.
The laundromat downstairs had been boarded up because it had been robbed two days before and the owner had painted on the wood YES WE'RE OPEN so as not to lose business.
Where do you live? she asked.
There, I said pointing up to the third floor.
You live there? There. I had to look to where she pointed—the third floor, the paint peeling, wooden bars Papa had nailed on the windows so we wouldn't fall out. You live there? The way she said it made me feel like nothing. There. I lived there. I nodded.

I knew then I had to have a house. A real house. One I could point to. But this isn't it. The house on Mango Street isn't it. For the time being, Mama says. Temporary, says Papa. But I know how those things go.

Chunk 6 annotation

House on Mango Street Questions
Directions: Answer the following questions in complete sentences.
Where did the narrator live before she moved to The House on Mango Street?
How were her previous homes different?
In what kind of house would she like to live?
Discuss what the narrator’s view of a home is. What makes a house a home? Is the narrator satisfied with her house? Does she feel that she belongs there? Explain.

In describing her house, or where she lives, what does Esperanza convey about her self-identity? How does the description of her home affect the way she sees the world?
Make a connection: How is this vignette similar to or different than your life? Explain. What does it remind you of?