“Eleven” by Sandra Cisneros.
What they don't understand about birthdays and what they never tell you is that when you're eleven, you're also ten, and nine, and eight, and seven, and six, and five, and four, and three, and two, and one. And when you wake up on your eleventh birthday you expect to feel eleven, but you don't. You open your eyes and everything's just like yesterday, only it's today. And you don't feel eleven at all. You feel like you're still ten. And you are—underneath the year that makes you eleven.
Like some days you might say something stupid, and that's the part of you that's still ten. Or maybe some days you might need to sit on your mama's lap because you're scared, and that's the part of you that's five. And maybe one day when you're all grown up maybe you will need to cry like if you're three, and that's okay. That's what I tell Mama when she's sad and needs to cry. Maybe she's feeling three.
Because the way you grow old is kind of like an onion or like the rings inside a tree trunk or like my little wooden dolls that fit one inside the other, each year inside the next one. That's how being eleven years old is.
You don't feel eleven. Not right away. It takes a few days, weeks even, sometimes even months before you say Eleven when they ask you. And you don't feel smart eleven, not until you're almost twelve. That's the way it is.
Only today I wish I didn't have only eleven years rattling inside me like pennies in a tin Band-Aid box. Today I wish I was one hundred and two instead of eleven because if I was one hundred and two I'd have known what to say when Mrs. Price put the red sweater on my desk. I would've known how to tell her it wasn't mine instead of just sitting there with that look on my face and nothing coming out of my mouth.
"Whose is this?" Mrs. Price says, and she holds the red sweater up in the air for all the class to see. "Whose? It's been sitting in the coatroom for a month."
"Not mine," says everybody, "Not me."
"It has to belong to somebody," Mrs. Price keeps saying, but nobody can remember. It's an ugly sweater with red plastic buttons and a collar and sleeves all stretched out like you could use it for a jump rope. It's maybe a thousand years old and even if it belonged to me I wouldn't say so.
Maybe because I'm skinny, maybe because she doesn't like me, that stupid Sylvia Saldivar says, "I think it belongs to Rachel." An ugly sweater like that all raggedy and old, but Mrs. Price believes her. Mrs Price takes the sweater and puts it right on my desk, but when I open my mouth nothing comes out.
"That's not, I don't, you're not . . . Not mine." I finally say in a little voice that was maybe
"Of course it's yours," Mrs. Price says. "I remember you wearing it once." Because she's older and the teacher, she's right and I'm not.
Not mine, not mine, not mine, but Mrs. Price is already turning to page thirty-two, and math problem number four. I don't know why but all of a sudden I'm feeling sick inside, like the part of me that's three wants to come out of my eyes, only I squeeze them shut tight and bite down on my teeth real hard and try to remember today I am eleven, eleven. Mama is making a cake for me for tonight, and when Papa comes home everybody will sing Happy birthday, happy birthday to you.
But when the sick feeling goes away and I open my eyes, the red sweater's still sitting there like a big red mountain. I move the red sweater to the corner of my desk with my ruler. I move my pencil and books and eraser as far from it as possible. I even move my chair a little to the right. Not mine, not mine, not mine.
In my head I'm thinking how long till lunchtime, how long till I can take the red sweater and throw it over the schoolyard fence, or leave it hanging on a parking meter, or bunch it up into a little ball and toss it in the alley. Except when math period ends Mrs. Price says loud and in front of everybody, "Now, Rachel, that's enough," because she sees I've shoved the red sweater to the tippy-tip corner of my desk and it's hanging all over the edge like a waterfall, but I don't care.
"Rachel," Mrs. Price says. She says it like she's getting mad. "You put that sweater on right now and no more nonsense."
"But it's not—"
"Now!" Mrs. Price says.
This is when I wish I wasn't eleven because all the years inside of me—ten, nine, eight, seven, six, five, four, three, two, and one—are pushing at the back of my eyes when I put one arm through one sleeve of the sweater that smells like cottage cheese, and then the other arm through the other and stand there with my arms apart like if the sweater hurts me and it does, all itchy and full of germs that aren't even mine.
That's when everything I've been holding in since this morning, since when Mrs. Price put the sweater on my desk, finally lets go, and all of a sudden I'm crying in front of everybody. I wish I was invisible but I'm not. I'm eleven and it's my birthday today and I'm crying like I'm three in front of everybody. I put my head down on the desk and bury my face in my stupid clown-sweater arms. My face all hot and spit coming out of my mouth because I can't stop the little animal noises from coming out of me until there aren't any more tears left in my eyes, and it's just my body shaking like when you have the hiccups, and my whole head hurts like when you drink milk too fast.
But the worst part is right before the bell rings for lunch. That stupid Phyllis Lopez, who is even dumber than Sylvia Saldivar, says she remembers the red sweater is hers! I take it off right away and give it to her, only Mrs. Price pretends like everything's okay.
Today I'm eleven. There's a cake Mama's making for tonight and when Papa comes home from work we'll eat it. There'll be candles and presents and everybody will sing Happy birthday, happy birthday to you, Rachel, only it's too late.
I'm eleven today. I'm eleven, ten, nine, eight, seven, six, five, four, three, two, and one, but I wish I was one hundred and two. I wish I was anything but eleven, because I want today to be far away already, far away like a runaway balloon, like a tiny o in the sky, so tiny tiny you have to close your eyes to see it.
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Comments are due April 03, 2022 01:00
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I would engage students by first asking my students to raise their hand and tell me what age they would want to be or what age they enjoyed being and why. I think that way they will look forward to reading the story.
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today is a key word
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birthday, feelings, rattling, sweater, thinking,and remember
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Mama is a keyword
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I liked this sentence because I was able to understand that it tells about the differences in the human life of human beings.
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(Wooden) I think wooden is a word important to know because in the context of the sentence if you know the meaning of wooden then you would have a visual of what type of doll that is being describe.
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I loved this paragraph because it perfectly described what I think everyone experiences. I can personally relate to this, especially in this moment because my birthday was yesterday, and I still feel 21. I don’t feel 22. Some days I feel 25 while others I feel 10.
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The line from the passage I loved and connected to is “That’s when everything I’ve been holding in since this morning, since when Mrs. Price put the sweater on my desk, finally lets go, and all of sudden I’m crying in front of everybody “. I chose this line because, I can relate to students and have witnessed students have meltdowns. It can happen to anyone, when a student is overwhelmed, frustrated, upset, and emotions overtake them. This also can happen when a student becomes frustrated when they don’t comprehend the content due to their language proficiency.
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I love this sentence because I feel like we have all had that time in life we wanted to be something. For example I remember when I was younger I wanted to be 16 so bad because I wanted to start driving. I didn’t want to be 15, 14,13,12 and so on I just wanted to be 16.
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I like the idea of filling the organizer with things that matter to us. This is a good mini lesson on the side to learn about the things that are also important to your students.
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lives. It’ll also help expand their vocabulary by making it a requirement to include at least three keywords from the text in their writing.
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I would have a list of key words for vocabulary. I would also have the class talk about birthdays, what they mean to them, and then we would talk about how we feel when we are sad or when someone makes us sad. Then after the story we will all draw a picture of what we remember in the story as well as putting notes on each picture of what we like about it.
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I would engage all students by first sectioning the reading for the students so it breaks it into easy to digest chunks. I would then have students try to think of a time they felt like the person who wrote this passage. I would start by talking about a time I felt misunderstood.
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I would engage all students with the short story through “Literary Response Groups”. Each student in each group will read a section of the story. Each time the numbers in the story are read, the group will read the numbers together aloud. I will also have students read aloud together any sentences/passages that are repeated in the story. Afterwards students will share a time that they felt emotions like Rachel’s in the form of discussions.
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One accommodation would be making an adapted text. This way we can scaffold the reading for the students to make it easier for them. We can add visuals to the text, and highlight keywords. Another accommodation I would make is to practice high-frequency words before we read. With that practice, students are able to identify the words without having to decode them.
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I feel like these 2 are the best for beginners because after they read a section of the passage the can see if they understand by answer question the go along.
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The accommodations I would provide to Emergent Bilinguals at the beginning proficiency levels is Guided Reading and Extended Response. Literature Response Groups gives EB’s more options to express themselves and engage in the lesson. It also will a way to assess students comprehension.
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Through the use of graphic organizers, we can scaffold the reading. As we read, I can help them fill out the graphic organizers. For example, we could use a story progression graphic organizer. With vocabulary lists, we can aid the students in understanding what certain words mean. I could even add visuals to the vocabulary list to make it easier.
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can comprehend better the text and include the vocabulary in their dialogue journal.
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The reason why I choose these two is that having them work with a partner can allow them to share what is going on in the passage instead of just one of them trying to figure it out.
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I would go over key vocabulary before reading the passage and I would try to add some visuals to the passage. I would add some visuals to increase comprehension and I would go over vocabulary to also increase comprehension.
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