Sample Double-Edged Journal for “Those Who Don’t” by ...



Double-Edged Journals

Directions: During reading, compile a double-edged journal to help your comprehension and interpretation of a text. Make a T-chart on a piece of paper. On the right side, copy quotes that you find intriguing, confusing, educational, or inspirational. It could be a quote that reminds you of something, makes you wonder, or that you agree with or disagree with. On the left side of the chart, reflect on your chosen quotes. Explain your thoughts, ask a question, or make a prediction.

The example below is from a short story by Sandra Cisneros, “Those Who Don’t”.

“Those Who Don’t” by Sandra Cisneros

“Those Who Don’t”

Those who don’t know any better come into our neighborhood scared. They think we’re dangerous. They think we will attack them with shiny knives. They are stupid people who are lost and got here by mistake.

But we weren’t afraid. We know the guy with the crooked eye is Davey the Baby’s brother, and the tall one next to him in the straw brim, that’s Rosa’s Eddie V. and the big one that looks like a grown man, he’s Fat Boy, though he’s not fat anymore nor a boy.

All brown all around, we are safe. But watch us drive into a neighborhood of another color and our knees go shakity-shake and our car windows get rolled up tight and our eyes look straight. Yeah. That is how it goes and goes.

Double Edged Journal

|Quote with Page Number |Reflection |

|“They are stupid people who are lost here and got here by mistake.” |Why don’t these people just help them out instead of thinking they’re stupid? What |

|(pg. 81) |were the mistakes that people make to end up there, anyway? |

|“We know the guy with the crooked eye is Davey the Baby’s brother” |I knew someone like that back home. He could never look at anyone straight in the |

|(pg. 81) |eye, but we never minded that because he was so funny. |

|“all brown all around” (pg. 81) |I like the way this sounds when you say it. It kind of rolls around on your tongue |

| |and it’s fun to say. |

|“our knees go shakity-shake” (pg. 81) |I think “shakity-shake” means that she gets scared too, when she goes someplace |

| |different. |

|“Yeah. That’s how it goes and goes.” (pg. 81) |I think she’s saying that this is the way it is everywhere and that life doesn’t |

| |really change. I don’t agree with her, because if people really do want to change, |

| |they can. |

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