Ten Handwritten Or Typed Are Due on 9/22-23

Example of a dialectical journal

Ten handwritten or typed are due on 9/22-23

Dialectical Journal for The House on Mango Street

Title of vignette:

Born Bad

Context for this passage: This vignette is about Aunt Lupe. She used to be beautiful like Esperanza’s mom but then she got sick. No one knows exactly how she got sick but she did. Everyone knew she was going to die but Esperanza did not quite understand at the time. Rachel, Lucy, and Esperanza were playing a game to imitate family members and they imitated Aunt Lupe. They did not know she was going to die and felt ashamed. In the end, her Aunt Lupe did die.

Theme for this vignette: The need to persevere and overcome obstacles

Quote and page # Analysis + 100 words

“But I think diseases have no This means that Aunt Lupe really got sick out of nowhere. This quote eyes” (59). stuck out to me because many people who get a serious disease are just

random. It could be your neighbor, a register clerk at the grocery store,

your best friend. We don’t know who it may hit next. It may hit a very

nice person like Aunt Lupe. Aunt Lupe had kids that got used to her

being sick. She would be lying in her bed, not being able to see the

stacked dishes or the darkness in her room. Esperanza was even scared to

see her alone but when she did she would read her the poems she has

written. Dialectical Journal for The House on Mango Street

Title of vignette:

Elenita, Cards, Palms, Water

Context for this passage: This vignette is about Esperanza going to see a “witch woman” named

Elenita. Elenita has two kids and is being kind of rude when she is being told her fortune; past,

present, and future. When Esperanza gets her fortune she is not too pleased about it. It is not

what she wanted. Elenita offers to check again and it’s the same outcome, Home in the Heart.

Theme for this vignette: The Struggle for Self-Definition

Quote and page # Analysis + 100 words “A home in the heart, I was Esperanza’s fortune is referring to the house on Mango Street. I believe right. she got this because Esperanza is not really fond of her house. She has

Only I don’t get it. to look deeper into it and realize that this house has brought so many

A new house, a house made good and bad things into her life. She has friends now, she understands of heart” (64). more now than she did before, she got to bond with her dad. All of her

of her other houses never offered that like this house did. Yes, it is in a

so called “bad neighborhood,” but that is what makes it their own.

Esperanza only looks at the bad in that house when she really needs to

just focus on the good.