Children's Book Press - Soledad Sigh-Sighs

maps of New York City, Puerto Rico, and the eastern United States; books about New York City's Puerto Rican (Nuyorican) community and Puerto Rican geography, history, and culture; pictures of the Puerto Rican flag, Vejigante masks, and traditional Puerto Rican foods; audiocassette or CD player and tapes or compact disks of mambo and merengue music. (See Resources for suggested books and websites.)

Exploring New York City and the Nuyorican Community

Create a classroom display about the Nuyorican community in New York City and about Puerto Rico. Display maps of New York City, Puerto Rico, and the eastern United States. Include a collection of books about New York City and Puerto Rico that give information about the history of Puerto Rico, including Puerto Rican culture that has been transplanted to New York. If possible, also display a picture of the Puerto Rican flag.

Put on display Internet pictures of Vejigante masks and traditional Puerto Rican food mentioned in the story, such as gandules and bizcocho. If possible, set up a listening station that features mambo and merengue music.

Ask students to share what they know about the cultural diversity of New York City. Explain that the story they are about to read is set in a New York City neighborhood that has residents from many different cultural backgrounds, including a large group of people of Puerto Rican heritage. Explain that the term Nuyorican refers to the many Puerto Ricans who live in New York. Encourage students to learn more about the history and culture of New York and Nuyoricans by exploring the materials on display in the classroom.

Before students read Soledad Sigh-Sighs / Soledad Suspiros, have them locate New York and Puerto Rico on the map of the eastern United States. On a map of New York City, point out the boroughs of Brooklyn (where the story takes place), the Bronx, and the neighborhood of East Harlem in Manhattan, where large concentrations of Puerto Rican families can be found.

After-School Activities
Students discuss their after-school activities and identify those things they enjoy doing alone and with friends.

30 min.

whole class; partner

CA Language Arts Standards (Listening and Speaking) 1.2: Connect and relate prior experiences, insights, and ideas to those of a speaker; 1.3: Respond to questions with appropriate elaboration.

blackboard, chalk

Explain that Soledad Sigh-Sighs / Soledad Suspiros is about a young girl who must spend time alone after school because her parents work long hours. Point out that, although an adult keeps an eye on her to make sure she is safe, she is responsible for taking care of herself and keeping herself entertained.

Ask students to tell about the things they do after school. List their responses on the board. Then engage them in a discussion about the ways in which they are responsible for themselves after school. Ask them what they do to take care of themselves and how they keep themselves busy or entertained.

Encourage students to tell what they like and don't like about their after-school experiences. Then ask them to share strategies they have discovered for dealing with loneliness or boredom. Record their responses on the board. Be aware that some students may be reluctant to share the details of their situations.

Have students work in pairs to sort the after-school activities recorded on the board into three categories—“Things We Like to Do Alone,” “Things We Like to Do with Friends,” and “Both.” Have partners use their lists to create a Venn diagram about after-school activities.

Additional Idea for Getting Ready to Read

Imagination Corner: Create an “imagination corner” or “treasure box” that contains playing cards, games, art materials, magazines, and other interesting things for kids to use or play with alone or with a friend. Set aside time for students to explore the area and activities.

Diving In

30 min.

whole class; small group; partner; individual

CA Language Arts Standards (Reading) 2.4: Students make and modify predictions about forthcoming information.

Introduce the book to students in a large or small group. The focus of this first reading should be reading for pleasure—encouraging students to enjoy the beauty of the book and the story it tells. In order to foster this enjoyment, try some of the following activities:

Discuss the cover, the title, and the illustrations. Look at the structure of the book—how it is set up with English and Spanish text blocks (the English blocks always beginning with a letter or phrase in red type and the Spanish blocks always beginning with a letter or phrase in blue type).

Encourage students to further explore the story by taking them on a “picture walk” through the book, thinking about the story as it is told in the illustrations. Have students work in pairs to discuss what they see in the illustrations as you turn the pages of the book in front of them. At the end of the picture walk, ask students to share one interesting thing that they observed in the illustrations.

Once students have shared their observations about the book, ask them what story they think the book tells. List their predictions on the board.

Read Soledad Sigh-Sighs / Soledad Suspiros aloud to the large group, or have students read the book in small groups, with a partner, or on their own. As students are reading, suggest that they stop occasionally to check their predictions and make new ones. Once the reading is complete, ask students to revisit their predictions and revise them as necessary.

At the beginning of this first reading, you may also want to introduce or review with students a strategy they can use to monitor or clarify their own comprehension, such as the Rereading Strategy. To do so, you might model the strategy after reading aloud page 12 of the story. You might say something like, The end of the page says that Mr. Wong, the bodega owner, is confused when Soledad says “sorry” to him. At first I was confused by this. But by rereading the previous paragraph and looking at the picture, I see that Soledad is pretending to kick an invisible ball over the fence toward the market. Now I understand why Mr. Wong is confused.

Words About Being Alone
Students learn key words and phrases related to being alone as well as story words that appear in Spanish.

30 min.

whole class

CA Language Arts Standards (Reading) 1.5: Demonstrate knowledge of levels of specificity among grade-appropriate words and explain the importance of these relations; 1.6: Use sentence and word context to find the meanings of unknown words; 1.7: Use a dictionary to learn the meaning and other features of unknown words.

blackboard, chalk

Ask students if they know the meaning of the name Soledad. If necessary, explain that soledad is a Spanish word meaning either “solitude” or “loneliness.” Then ask students why they think the author might have chosen this name for the story's main character. You may want to underscore the dual nature of the word's meaning given its positive (as in “solitude”) and negative (as in “loneliness”) connotations.

Remind students that, in the beginning of the story, Soledad is unhappy because she must spend so much time alone after school. Write the word “alone” on the board. Then ask students to work in pairs to identify other story words and phrases used to describe “being alone” as well as story words and phrases used to describe “being with others.” Have partners share their lists with the class. Key words that appear in the story include:

Words About Being Alone alone (pp. 6, 17, 30); by myself (pp. 18, 20) by herself (p. 11); by yourself (pp. 20, 26) nobody (p. 14); on your own (pp. 20, 28) lonely (p. 17)	Words About Being w/Others together (pp. 8, 30) with someone else (p. 20) when somebody helps you (p. 26) with your friends (p. 28)
Have students use these and other words and phrases to discuss things they like to do alone and with others.

Work with students to examine the Spanish words that appear in the story. Remember that students who are heritage Spanish speakers can be a valuable classroom resource for conversations such as these.

Spanish Words/Phrases

gandules (p. 3): pigeon peas
mami (p. 3): mom
papi (p. 3): dad
suspiros (p. 6): sighs
sí-sí (p. 11): yes, yes
felicidad (p. 11): happiness
piraguas (p. 11): a paper cone filled with shaved ice and topped with fruit-flavored syrup

bodega (p. 12) market
mambo, merengue (p. 20): types of dances originating in the Caribbean
bizcocho (p. 23): cake
chinas (p. 23): Puerto Rican name for oranges
Qué bonita bandera (p. 26): What a beautiful flag (name of a patriotic Puerto Rican song)

Use Your Imagination
Students identify and describe story problems and solutions.

45 min.

whole class

CA Language Arts Standard (Reading) 2.6: Extract appropriate and significant information from the text, including problems and solutions.

blackboard and chalk or flipchart and markers

Ask students to identify the problem that causes Soledad to sigh unhappily at the beginning of the story. Write this on the board, under the heading "Problem." Then ask students to discuss the things Soledad does by herself and with others to solve her problem. Remind them that by the end of the story, Soledad sighs in a happy way. Add students' responses under the heading “Solutions.”

Encourage students to comment on the effectiveness of the solutions. For example, some students may feel that making up an imaginary friend will only make Soledad feel lonelier.

Have students share with a partner how they think they might feel if they were in Soledad's position. Encourage them to come up with new solutions to Soledad's problem. Then invite them to role-play children in similar situations.

Ask students to identify problems facing other characters in the book. What are Nedelsy and Jahniza sometimes unhappy about? What about Soledad's mother? What solutions might students find for them?

Character Traits
Students examine and discuss the traits of the main characters in the story.

30 min.

small group, whole class

CA Language Arts Standard (Reading) 3.3: Determine what characters are like by what they say and do and by how the author or illustrator portrays them.

paper, pencils

Turn to page 11 of Soledad Sigh-Sighs / Soledad Suspiros and have a volunteer read the text aloud. Ask students what action Soledad takes on this page. (She invents a make-believe sister so that she isn't by herself anymore.) Engage students in a discussion about Soledad's actions and what they say about her. If necessary, point out that paying attention to a character's actions and words, how the author describes the character, and how the illustrator paints or draws the character can help readers better understand what the character is like as well as how the character changes and grows.

Have students work in pairs. Ask them to go back to the beginning of the story and look for information in the text and pictures about what Soledad is like and how she changes. Have them use this information to create a character web, similar to the one below. When they have finished, ask them to share their work, pointing out the evidence in the text and pictures that support their inferences. Have them share their ideas about how Soledad has changed during the course of the story. Then have partners repeat the process for Nedelsy and Jahniza.

Additional Literary Response and Analysis Activities

Author's Craft: Point out similes and descriptive language used in the story:

“dark as cooked gandules” (p. 3) (windows)
“like a slice of Swiss cheese” (p. 6) (worksheet in between the pages of a book)
“like the strangest flowers in Brooklyn” (p. 8) (colorful pieces of trash)
“like three pairs of wings flapping in the wind” (p. 28) (braids)

Discuss also the author's use of repetition and sounds associated with jobs and routines, and emotions:

“sweep-sweep” (p. 3)
“wash-dry-fold” (p. 3)
“bleep-bleep” (p. 3)
“sigh-sighs” (p. 3)
“wash-dry-dress” (p. 6)

Then invite students to write their own descriptions of one of these things: a tree or plant they see when they walk in their neighborhood; trucks, cars, scooters, or bikes that go through their neighborhood; rain, snow, sunlight, or wind in their neighborhood; or a person they often see in their neighborhood. Encourage them to use similes and repetitive, rhythmic language of their own.