Part I

Annotating the Text

* Highlight or underline the lines that indicate specific factors that shape each writer’s or character’s identity and world.

* Put notes in the margins, also called annotations, next to those lines, explaining how and why you believe these factors have impacted the writer or character’s identity and world.

*You must include 3-5 annotations for each text. See Annotation Sample below.

Annotation Sample

Text: “My Name” from page 42 of

The House On Mango Street

by Sandra Cisneros

In English my names 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, song 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 Mexican, 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 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 sister’s name--Magdalena--which is uglier than mine. Magdalena who at least can come home and become Nenny. But I am always Esperanza.

I 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.

Annotations: These comments are your opinions/analysis on what the writer and character’s words say about what has shaped their identities and how so.

From the opening of this passage, it seems that Esperanza is not overly happy with the name she has been given, as she thinks it is too long, likens it to sadness, mud, and sobbing. I imagine the remainder of the passage will reveal more about why.

Wow… this part about Chinese and Mexican people not liking their women strong strikes me as harsh and stereotypical. I am curious as to what led her to this conclusion.

I wonder how true this story about the sack is but, clearly, Esperanza has learned through family stories that some of the women in her family were treated very poorly.

In this part, Esperanza’s voice gains clarity and power. She wants to live life differently than her great-grandmother. I imagine she wants a life in which she has more opportunities that can help shape her into the person she wants to be, instead of being oppressed by the cultural norms she has learned of and seen in Mexican culture. This is extremely brave of her to try to carve out her own path, despite the repercussions that may come.

Clearly, Esperanza does not feel that her name captures her essence, and so she imagines having the power to change it. I wonder if, as she gets older, she will take a different perspective on her name.

Part I (continued)

Composing Analytical Responses

* Select a quote (dialogue and/or narration) from each text that best shows which factors have shaped the writer or character’s identity and world.

* Using your annotations as a guide, explain how the factor(s) shown in the quote have shaped the writer or character’s identity and world.

* Create three analytical responses, one for each text. You must include at least one quote from each text within each response. Use MLA parenthetical citations. See Analytical Response Sample directly below.

Analytical Response Sample

This sample is based on “My Name” by Sandra Cisneros; note how you need to include the quote you are choosing to analyze at the top of the page, and then must embed some or all of the quote into your response.

Quote to be Integrated into the Analytical Response:

“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” (Cisneros 42).

Analytical Response:

In the passage “My Name” by Sandra Cisneros, the influence of Esperanza’s great-grandmother seems to go beyond the name they share. There is a certain spirit of defiance in her great-grandmother, which is indicated when Esperanza describes her as “a wild horse of a woman” (Cisneros 42). This, along with the fact that she does not want to get married, implies that she did not want to be tamed. She was a free spirit who did not want to blindly ascribe to the restrictive cultural norms her people often placed upon their women. Regardless of this woman’s strong feelings, Esperanza’s great-grandfather ended up taking her great-grandmother away, supposedly with a “sack over her head,” as though she was his property, just an object, “a fancy chandelier” (Cisneros 42). Esperanza seems to perceive that her great-grandmother was unhappy being tamed, and she doesn’t want the same fate for herself. Clearly, Esperanza has inherited not only her name but also her defiant spirit. Like her great-grandmother, Esperanza does not want to give up her freedom. Her strong-willed spirit also clearly shines through when Esperanza declares, “I would like to baptize myself under a new name, a name more like the real me, the one nobody sees” (Cisneros 42). In doing so, she is striving to take control of her life and her destiny in a way her great-grandmother never could. This is extremely courageous of Esperanza, though only time will tell how her strong feelings manifest themselves in the future.

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