Sample Vignettes

A vignette is a short scene that gives us a brief

glimpse into the life of a character or place. Before
writing your own vignette about who you are and
who you want to be as a student, consider these
samples from The House on Mango Street by
Sandra Cisneros.

"The House on Mango Street"

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.

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.

We had to leave the flat on Loomis 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.

They always told us that one day we would move into a

house, a real house that would be ours for always 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 T.V. 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. 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 litde elms the city planted by the curb.

Out back 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.

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.
"A House of My Own"

Not a flat. Not an apartment in back. Not a man's house.

Not a daddy's. A house all my own. With my porch and
my pillow, my pretty purple petunias. My books and
my stories. My two shoes waiting beside the bed. Nobody
to shake a stick at. Nobody's garbage to pick up after.
Only a house quiet as snow, a space for myself to go,
dean as paper before the poem.

"Mango Says Goodbye Sometimes"

I like to tell stories. I tell them inside my head. I

tell them after the mailman says, Here's your mail.
Here's your mail he said.

I make a story for my life, for each step my brown

shoe takes. I say, "And so she trudged up the
wooden stairs , her sad brown shoes taking her to
the house she never liked."

I like to tell stories. I am going to tell you a story

about a girl who didn't want to belong.

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, but what I remember most is Mango
Street, sad red house, the house I belong but do not
belong to.

I put it down on paper and then the ghost does not

ache so much. I write it down and Mango says
goodbye sometimes. She does not hold me with
both arms. She sets me free.

One day I will pack my bags of books and paper.

One day I will say goodbye to Mango. I am too
 strong for her to-keep me here forever. One day I
will go away.
Friends and neighbors will say, What happened to
that Esperanza? Where did she go with all those
books and paper? Why did she march so far away?
They will not know I have gone away to come
back. For the ones I left behind. For the ones who
cannot out.

Classroom Vignette
Posted on:
Monday, March 4, 2013 - 6:06am

Written by: Dr. Julian Fleron

A Look Into Our Classroom

What does a day in our Mathematics for Liberal Arts Classroom look like? It's still five minutes before class starts when I walk into the
room. Each of the nine tables in the classroom has 2 or 3 students seated at it. Of the two dozen students already in the classroom a few are
just sitting idly or chatting while getting organized, but most are already doing mathematics. They're already "getting their math on" as they
often say. Their notebooks are open, already recording ideas, diagrams, data, guesses, patterns, computations, and rationales. Soon these
things will be transformed into more formal responses to investigative prompts: solutions, reasoning, conjectures, proofs, and mini-essays.

Individually I greet the few students who notice I have arrived, put the quote of the day on the board, and tour the room to see how
everybody's work is progressing. As I do, the room fills up to its capacity of 35, and by the time class is supposed to "start" every student is
doing mathematics. Typically it takes only a few classes at the beginning of the semester for the students to be drawn into being the center of
the mathematical experience, and this group is no different. I've said nothing to the class as a whole, given no direction for them to start
working, yet each student/group has picked up their mathematical exploration just where they previously left off.

Our focus this semester has been patterns. Our most recent foray is into a more strictly mathematical landscape than usual the prime
numbers. We're looking for strings of primes generated by a cylin-drical "quadratic number sieve" that each student has constructed out of
paper expressly for this purpose.

I approach a group who is a bit behind and now all of its members are focused on our materials. As I expect, they're having trouble
deciphering a suite of investigative prompts:

So what else can we say about the distribution of the primes? Consider the sequence of numbers 106!+2,106!+3,...,106!+106.106!+2,106!
+3,...,106!+106.

46) Explain why the numbers in this sequence are consecutive numbers.
47) How many numbers are there in this sequence?
48) Show that each of the numbers in this sequence in composite.
49) Contrast your answer in 48) with the conclusion of our earlier investigation we called the twin prime conjecture.

I urge them to be a bit more physically active and write things out. Almost immediately one student proclaims, "I get it." She quickly takes on
the role of teacher and the group is happily back on their own.

I approach another group who also has communication needs. "Our group was in the library last night and we were having trouble figuring out
how to explain this," one student shares.
They are working on the investigations given in the box below. Sieves in hand, they show me exactly what they had discovered. As they
articulate their ideas verbally, it becomes clear to them how they can construct clear, coherent, well-supported descriptions and rationales for
the results of their investigation with very little guidance from me.

66) Show that the first differences of the values of the quadratic q(n)=n2+n+cq(n)=n2+n+c will be the same as those of the
function f(n)=n2+nf(n)=n2+n and s(n)=n2+n+17s(n)=n2+n+17 we investigated above regardless of the value of cc.
67) Rotate the sieve so the sieve setting is 17. What do you notice about the entries in the windows? I.e. precisely how do these entries
relate to results of earlier investigations?
68) Repeat 67) with a sieve setting of 0.
69) You should see a critical relationship between entries in the windows for a given sieve setting and the functions qq parameterized by the
value of cc. Describe this relationship precisely.

I continue around the room to a group who I notice is less active than normal and query them about their progress. "We don't know what to
do, how to get conjectures for this goal." They point to the prompt:

Goal: Understand the ways in which functions q(n)=n2+n+cq(n)=n2+n+c generate primes as outputs depending on the value of the
parameter cc.

I ask them to show me what they've done. They use their sieves to illustrate that they clearly have several well-developed strategies for
looking for strings of primes. "Why aren't you using even settings?" I ask. "Because all the results are even. They're not prime." "Shouldn't
that be a conjecture? Isn't that part of your understanding of the goal?" I can see the change wash over them as they begin to talk excitedly
about other parts of their strategy that quickly become conjectures that are recorded in their notebooks.

As I pass another group one of the students tells me, "Yesterday in my criminal justice class the professor was talking about burden of proof in
civil versus criminal trials. That's kind of like all that stuff we've done about inductive and deductive reasoning, right?" The group and I talk
about the parallels. As we talk I realize a contentious debate about something mathematical is brewing in a group across the room. I'm not
close enough to overhear the details, but I know this is fundamental to real learning. I'll check on them in a bit to see what they have
concluded.

Class goes on happily like this for about thirty minutes until I call for a pause so I can make a few announcements, tie some mathematical
issues together and talk about how we'll evaluate our current body of work. Since we've done a "notebook quiz" and an "oral exam" for the
last two sections respectively, the students will write up all their results for summative assessment of this section. I show them the lead
article "Prime Number Patterns" (Granville, 2008) in the April American Mathematical Monthly and the cover of the May Notices of the
American Mathematical Society (2008). I'm excited because the former describes tantalizing progress towards solutions of questions we're
investigating and the latter shows a two-dimensional Sieve of Eratosthenes that bears striking resemblance to the quadratic number sieve
we've built and used for the past few weeks. The students see that our original course materials have given them a context for and
connection to these contemporary, high-profile research papers. I'm eager to see their essay responses to summary questions that close this
section that will be handed in shortly:

Essay 1) How does it feel to be working on mathematics fundamentally related to two 1$ Million Millennium Prize Problems?
Essay 2) In your opinion, how do you think mathematicians feel about the status of our understanding of the distribution of the primes?
Essay 3) You've read about the importance of primes in data encryption and security. Should this have some impact on mathematicians'
efforts to solve the Riemann Hypothesis?
Essay 4) In this section you worked on mathematics that has captivated mathematicians through the ages. You have learned about some of
the history and contemporary progress. Compare and contrast mathematicians' progress in this area with the progress of practitioners in
major area of focus in their different field of thought.

The first comment when we get back to "getting our math on" gives me every confidence their responses will be good because one student
calls out, "Hey Doc." As I approach she asks, "Is that Wiles guy who solved Fermat's Last Theorem working on this stuff we're doing too? This
is number theory too. He didn't get $1 Million for his problem, I'd be working on this Riemann Hypothesis if I were him." The student smiles
and her group members nod in agreement.