DATE:

Clear Learning Objective / COLOSO

Today I will read texts by Sandra Cisneros and write a complete, concise thesis, so that I can analyze the texts most significant
features for its theme.

Guided Questions/Prompting Stems:

How do text features help the reader develop an understanding of the characters?

Mentor Text:
There Was a Man, There Was a Woman-Sandra Cisneros
Los Boxers-Sandra Cisneros
I DO-FOCUSED INSTRUCTION
Connection/Hook:
Students are shown the following prompts from previous years AP exams. They are asked to find a commonality
between the four prompts. Students should note words like analyze, literary elements, and characters.

2016-In this excerpt from Thomas Hardys The Mayor of Casterbridge (1886), Michael Henchard and his daughter
Elizabeth-Jane are reunited after years of estrangement. Paying particular attention to tone, word choice, and
selection of detail, compose a well-written essay in which you analyze Hardys portrayal of the complex relationship
between the two characters.
2012- Helena Mara Viramontess Under the Feet of Jesus: Carefully read the following excerpt from the novel. Then
write a well-organized essay in which you analyze the development of Estrellas character. In your analysis, you may
wish to consider such literary elements as selection of detail, figurative language, and tone.
2009-Zorah Neale Hurstons Seraph on the Suwanee (1948): Analyze the literary techniques Hurston uses to describe
Sawley and to characterize the people who live there.
2003-Joyce Carol Oatess We Were the Mulvaneys (1996): Analyze the literary techniques Oates uses to characterize
the speaker, Judd Mulvaney. Support with specific references to the passage.

Teach:
Introduce acronym TWIST, a strategy students can use to analyze prose passages. Students will be using this strategy
to analyze the effect of the authors language; basically, how does the author use language to create meaning and
develop the characters.

Tone-speaker attitude
Word Choice-precise diction
Irony-the unexpected
Style-literary devices and writing techniques
Theme-meaning of the work as a whole

Review Sandra Cisneross background

Sandra Cisneros is an activist poet, short story writer, novelist, essayist and artist. Writing for over 50 years, her work
explores the lives of the working-class. Her work has been translated into more than twenty languages, and is
required reading in elementary, high school, and university curricula across the U.S. She received the 2015 National
Medal of Arts presented to her by President Obama at the White House.
Her work experiments with literary forms and investigates emerging subject positions, which Cisneros herself
attributes to growing up in a context of cultural hybridity and economic inequality that endowed her with unique
stories to tell.
Cisneros often incorporates Spanish into her English writing, substituting Spanish words for English ones where she
feels that Spanish better conveys the meaning or improves the rhythm of the passage. Works by Cisneros can
appear simple at first reading, but this is deceptive. She invites the reader to move beyond the text by recognizing
larger social processes within the microcosm of everyday life.
Anchor Chart:
TWIST Strategy
WE DO-GUIDED PRACTICE
Teacher will model using the TWIST strategy with There Was a Man, There Was a Woman.
Evidence Effect
Tone There was a man and there was a woman. Explanatory, objective tone forces reader to
Every payday, every other Friday, the man make their own meaning.
went to Friendly Spot Bar to drink and spend
his money.
Word Choice The man drank and drank with his friends Word choice of alcohol allowing words to slip
and believed if he drank and drank, the out shows character is not outgoing and
words for what he was feeling would slip out potentially socially awkward.
more readily, but he simply drank and said
nothing.
*call students attention to word choice of
slip
Irony The moon, the same round O. The man Leaves reader with a feeling that the story is
looked and swallowed. unfinished. It begins like a fairy tale, but ends
without a happy ending.
Style Every payday, every other Friday, the man Repetition begins parallel story lines creating the
went to Friendly Spot Bar to drink and spend effect of story telling
his money. Every payday, every other Friday,
the woman went to Friendly Spot Bar to drink
and spend her money.
Theme The man in his bed contemplated the same Humans are connected by emotions/feelings.
moon, and thought about the millions who
had looked at the moon before him, those
who had worshipped or loved or died before
that same moon, mute and lovely.
YALL DO-COLLABORATIVE LEARNING
Students work together in groups to analyze Cisneross Los Boxers text using the TWIST strategy. Anticipated
student responses:
Evidence Effect
Tone Theys cute when theyre little, but by the Casual, conversational, humorous tone. Shows
time they start turning ugly, its too late, you familiarity between characters
already love them.
Word Choice This aint nothing. That place had twice as Word choice shows education and socio-
many machines. And they had dryers that economic status of the man
was fifteen minutes for a quarter
Irony You know what else? When you wash, it Unexpected that a man would be telling a young
aint enough to separate the clothes by woman with a child how to do laundry
temperature. You need to separate them by
weight.
Style But thats the one they keep asking for the Rhetorical questions throughout show mans
most, right?...Lots of water, got it?...Gotta speech is more of a monologue than dialogue
keep on top of them, right? with the woman
Theme Everything in the house looked new even Its easy to take things/people for granted while
though it was olddrove me crazy with her you still have them.
ice cubes. But now that shes dead, well,
thats just how life is.
YOU DO-INDEPENDENT PRACTICE
Independent Writing Component:
Students will independently answer the short answer response question:

In what way does Sandra Cisneros use language to develop her themes?

Exit Ticket:
Students will reflect on their own understanding of TWIST Strategy by using the system below on their paper or when
they turn in the exit ticket.
1-I could explain it to someone else.
2-Im on the right track.
3-I need more practice.
Closing:
Teacher will redirect students to the objective in order to see if it was met. Teacher will inform students that the
following class, they will continue looking at prose passages in order to gain more understanding of how authors use
of language impacts the intended meaning of a piece.