Go+To+Text

**Go To Text**
Many teachers have text that have become favorites for many reasons. These pieces seem to offer many teaching points and are easy to pull out to use for different purposes.

**House on Mango Street by Sandra Cisneros**
//The House on Mango Street// is a coming-of-age [|novella] by Mexican-American writer [|Sandra Cisneros], published in 1984. It deals with a young Latina girl, Esperanza Cordero, growing up in the [|Chicago] [|Chicano] ghetto. Esperanza is determined to "say goodbye" to her impoverished Latino neighborhood. Not all readers may be able to identify with Esperanza's world in which everyone in the large family sleeps in one room, men prey on young girls, and husbands and fathers mistreat their children.[|[1]] Major themes include her quest for a better life and the importance of her promise to come back for "the ones I left behind."

**Bronx Masquerade by Nikki Grimes**
"This is almost like a play for 18 voices, as Grimes...moves her narration among a group of high school students in the Bronx. The English teacher, Mr. Ward, accepts a set of poems from Wesley, his response to a month of reading poetry from the Harlem Renaissance. Soon there's an open-mike poetry reading, sponsored by Mr. Ward, every month, and then later, every week. The chapters in the students' voices alternate with the poem read by that student, defiant, shy, terrified. All of them, black, Latino, white, male, and female, talk about the unease and alienation endemic to their ages, and they do it in fresh and appealing voices...Beyond those capsules are rich and complex teens, and their tentative reaching out to each other increases as though the poems they also find more of themselves." //Kirkus//, starred review ====**145th Street Stories by Walter Dean Myers** Myers frankly discusses the consequences of violence, drive-bys and gang war through his articulate characters, but tempers these episodes with such a love of his fictional community that every character shines through with the hope and strength of a survivor. Changing his point of view from teen to adult and back again through each vignette, Myers successfully builds a bridge of understanding between adolescents and adults that will help each group better understand the problems of the other. A worthy and recommended read that beautifully illustrates the good that can come out of a community that stands together.==== ====**Who am I Without Him? by Sharon Flake** Grade 7 Up-Written in the vernacular of urban African-American teens, which Flake captures flawlessly, these 10 stories have universal themes and situations. Some are funny and uplifting; others, disturbing and sad. In "So I Ain't No Good Girl," a teen wants to be with a good-looking popular boy, so much so that she tolerates his disrespect and abuse. In "Wanted: A Thug," Melody writes to a columnist for advice on how to steal a friend's boyfriend, unaware that the friend is the columnist's younger sister. Two of the stories are told from a boy's point of view. The concluding story, "A Letter to My Daughter," in which an absent father gives his daughter his advice about boys and men is sad, poignant, and loving. Flake has a way of teaching a lesson without seeming to do so. Addressing issues and situations that many girls face in today's often complex society, this book is rovocative and thought-provoking.====