ONE PAGER
Name __________________________
Text Title _________The Jacket______________________
Characters
Narrator – Gary De Soto
Mom
Frankie T = bully
Steve Negrete – best friend
Brother and sister
Describe the Setting
Home – poor neighborhood
Steamy kitchen, beans and
tortillas, shared bedroom
School - classroom and
playground
Who is the narrator?
How does he/she respond to
what happens to him/her in
the story? (cite text
evidence)
Gary
Words I didn’t know:
Guacamole
Point of View
First person – Gary Desoto in
a biography
How do his/her feelings
change over the course of
the story? (cite text
evidence)
He hated the jacket
He is angry and
throughout the story and his
embarrassed by the jacket
feelings about it never
his mother buys for him:
changed. The story ends
“color of day-old
with this phrase: “Green ugly
guacamole”
brother who breathed over
“Stared at the jacket like an
my shoulder that day and
enemy”
ever since.”
“even though it was cold I
He didn’t refuse to wear the
took off the jacket during
jacket in spite of how much
recess”
he hated it, and smiled a
“in my guacamole jacket…so
thank you at this mother,
embarrassed, so hurt”
but later he asked for a
“jacket became my ugly
different one. This shows a
brother who tagged along
tremendous respect for his
wherever I went”
mother and an
understanding of the
poverty in which they lived
which he later tried to
ignore. A simple reminder of
kids in Mexico who were
poorer was all it took to
make him silent on the
subject.
Connections I made to the
story:
Pain of feeling like you are
being made fun of. Thinking
people were talking about
you when you really had no
clue.
What do you think is the author’s message
about “growing up”?
That sometimes growing up is hard and we are forced to do
things we don’t want to.
REPETITION / Notice and Note Signpost: Again and Again….
 The frequent use of words or phrases in a story for emphasis.
 A writer may use repetition to emphasize an idea or feeling.
Example
(copy section of passage or line in
story)
“The color of day-old
guacamole”,
“And so I went in my
guacamole jacket”
Why do you think the author
repeated these words?
Color of rotten fruit is truly
ugly and the comparison
gives the reader a sense of
how ugly
When you read them does it
remind you of anything?
It reminds me of old
guacamole in my
refrigerator.
USE of FIGURATIVE LANGUAGE:
 A simile is a comparison of two unlike things using the words like or as.
Example
He emphasized
that
What two things
arethe
being
(copy
section
of
passage
or
line
in
“...the jacket that became my jacket is with
him
even
compared?
story)
ugly brother who tagged
along wherever I went.”
“ I stared at the jacket like
an enemy.”
What does the narrator mean by
this comparison?
though he doesn’t like it.
Just like a brother you can’t
get rid of, he is stuck with the Gary doesn’t like the jacket,
just like you would not like
jacket.Jacket and enemy
an enemy. He is at odd with
the jacket.
He mentioned the glasses to
let us know that mom was
The tape did not pull off
“my
mother…always
at the
“In rain
or cold weather
the always busy, she cooks a lot
Tape and scab
cleanly. It looked ugly like a
stove
steamed
tape with
peeled
off likeup
a scab.” at home…needed money,
scab would.
glasses.”
etc. This might also explain
why she gave him the jacket.
In a more serious way, she is He was trying to make fun of
in a fog and can’t see all that the jacket. He tried to wear
he is going through.
“I put my hand inside the
the jacket in different ways
jacket and flapped it like
Jacket and bird wings
and give visualize of how he
bird wings.”
was wearing it.