Name:

Period:

My Life, a Playlist: Creating a Picture of You through Music Cumulative Project

Rationale:

Music: Sandra Cisneros, author of The House on Mango Street, writes in a style that is both lyrical and musical. She uses snapshot, thought-shot and dialogue, as well as literary devices and sound devices to give her stories meaning and flow.

Identity and Home: In the novella, Esperanza creates a picture of her life on Mango Street as a way to see where she has been and ultimately decide where she is going. The music that we listen to everyday plays a big part in how we see ourselves and how we make realizations about ourselves like Esperanza. A song, band or jingle that we listen to might give us a better insight into our own identities. Our lives are always changing, and the music choices we make can be our “anchor” in times of change.

Community: Esperanza learns how to be part of her unique community in the novella. Her big realization of the responsibility she has to her community is what aids her in her quest for greatness.

The Project:

My Life, a Playlist: To deepen your exploration into who you are as a reflective person, you will be creating a playlist or soundtrack of your life so far. There are 3 parts to this project.

Part 1: Create the Playlist: You will create and turn in a written playlist with a song title, artist, brief explanation of its meaning and its connection to a specific year for each year of your life. Some years will be easier to choose a meaningful song for, while for others you may want to use the tips below:

Tips for choosing songs:

  • Think of your personality during that year and choose a song that has a similar personality or mood (i.e. if you were silly as a 2 year old, you might choose a silly song like “Ma-nah Ma-nah by the Muppets).
  • Think of the year that you were that age and choose a song from that year (i.e. if you were born in 1996, you might choose the song “Peaches” by The Presidents of the United States of America).
  • Think of a song that helped you through a certain time in your life and choose it for that year (i.e. if you needed to get pumped up to pass your MSPE test during 8th grade, and all you listened for a week was “Eye of the Tiger” by Survivor, then you might choose that song for 13).
  • Other ideas for choosing songs:

Part 2: Choose 3 Songs and Ages to Write One-Page Reflections: You will write 3 one-page reflections ( one for each of the 3 songs/ages you choose) where you answer the following:

  • What does the song mean?
  • What does the song mean to you?
  • Why did you choose this song for the age?
  • How does this song and age relate to your understanding of who you are now and who you can be in the future?

Notes on Part 2:

Part 3: Community Presentation: With two or three of your classmates, create a Presentation using Google Docs (so that you can share changes with each other), which combines one song from each, part of the writing and illustrations to present your playlists to the class.

  • In your Presentation, each person should contribute 2 slides:
  • One with a brief story or description of the song and why you chose it
  • One with the song embedded into it with illustration
  • The group will need to decide on a Title Slide and an End Credits slide together.
  • You will have to work together to create a MOTIF (color scheme, photographs, song from the same age or year) so that when you present your Project to the class, there is consistency and a showing of teamwork.

Notes on Part 3:

Final Products:

  1. My Life, a Playlist Project: Songs and Meaning Tracking Guide (Completed Playlist): Due: 4/16.
  2. 3 Written Reflections on 3 of the Songs from your Playlist: Due: 4/19
  3. Community Presentation: Due 4/23 (presentation spots to be determined closer to presentation dates).

My Life, a Playlist Project: Songs and Meaning Tracking Sheet

Age / Song Title and Artist / What does this song mean to you? / How does this song relate to who you are now?
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
Age / Song Title and Artist / What does this song mean to you? / How does this song relate to who you are now?
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20

The House on Mango Street