There Was an Old Woman She Had So Many Children She Didn T Know What to Do

There Was an Old Woman She Had So Many Children She Didn’t Know What to Do by Sandra Cisneros, from House on Mango Street

Rosa Vargas’ kids are too many and too much. It’s not her fault you know, except she is their mother and only one against so many. They are bad those Vargases, and how can they help it with only one mother who is tired all the time from buttoning and bottling and babying, and who cries every day for the man who left without even leaving a dollar for bologna or a note explaining how come. The kids bend trees and bounce between cars and dangle upside down from knees and almost break like fancy museum vases you can’t replace. They think it’s funny. They are without respect for all things living, including themselves. But after a while you get tired of being worried about kids who aren’t even yours. One day they are playing chicken on Mr. Benny’s roof. Mr. Benny says, Hey ain’t you kids know better than to be swinging up there? Come down, you come down right now, and then they just spit. See. That’s what I mean. No wonder everybody gave up. Just stopped looking out when little Efren chipped his buck tooth on a parking meter and didn’t even stop Refugia from getting her head stuck between two slats in the back gate and nobody looked up not once the day Angel Vargas learned to fly and dropped from the sky like a sugar donut, just like a falling star, and exploded down to earth without even an “Oh.”

Literary Road Map: “There was an old woman she had so many children she didn’t know what to do”

Essential Questions  What does it mean to be a good parent?  Are people responsible for each other in a community?  What does it mean to respect yourself? Literary Terms  simile: comparing two very different things using “like” or “as” (ex. Her eyes are like a starry night. His eyes are as sharp as a snake’s.)  ambiguous: unclear Getting Things Straight—complete sentences are not necessary. 1. Who is Rosa Vargas, and why is she always tired?

2. Why does she cry?

3. Who is Mr. Benny?

4. Is he being nice? Or, is he being mean?

5. Who is Efren and what happened to him?

6. Who is Refugia and what happened to her?

7. Who is Angel and what do you think happened to him? (you might think this is ambiguous)

Going Further—complete sentences are not necessary. 1. Find the three similes in the story. State the two objects being compared in each instance. Why do you think Cisneros chooses to use these similes? 2. What does this mean: “they are without respect for all living things, including themselves”? 3. Why didn’t anybody look up when Angel fell? 4. “But after a while you get tired of worrying about kids who aren’t even yours.” How do you feel about this quote? Do you agree with the narrator?

Delving In Questions/Paragraph—please answer in a paragraph. 1. Is Mr. Benny being nice, or is he being mean? (Prove your point with evidence from the story!) 2. Who should we blame (if anyone) for what happened to Angel Vargas? (Prove your point with evidence from the story!)

Delve-In Response Graphic Organizer: “There Was an Old Woman…” Paragraph Question: Who is to blame for what happened to the kids? Claim (including the author and book title): Sample sentence: In “There was an old woman she had so many kids she didn’t know what to do” from ______by ______, I think that ______is/is not to blame for Refugia, Efren, and Angel getting hurt.

Your claim:

Evidence/Support #1: (Using evidence from your story, back up your claim!)

Evidence/Support #2: (Using evidence from your story, back up your claim!)

Evident/Support #3: (Using evidence from your story, back up your claim!)

Mini Concluding Sentence: (Restate your claim using different words. You don’t need title and author.)

****Academic Challenge: For each piece of evidence, incorporate a direct quote from the story to back up your point.