Connections: Read Sandra’s Cisneros’s poem Cloud after you have finished reading and studying A Christmas
Memory. After you have read the poem, you will be asked to connect it to the story.
Common Core: RL. 1 Cite strong and thorough textual evidence to support analysis of what the text says explicitly as well as inferences drawn from the text
RL. 7 Analyze the representation of a subject in two different artistic mediums.
Essential Question: What makes a good friend?
Analyzing Visuals: Examine
this portrait before you read
Sandra Cisneros’s poem Cloud.
Based on the portrait infer
what the poem may be about.
Explain your answer.
The Dream Tree by Daniel Nevins
Cloud by Sandra Cisneros (also on page 698 in textbook)
If you are a poet, you will see clearly that there is a cloud floating in this sheet of paper.
-Thich Nhat Hanh
Before you became a cloud, you were an ocean, roiled and
murmuring like a mouth. You were the shadows of a cloud crossing
over a field of tulips. You were the tears of a man who cried
into a plaid handkerchief. You were the sky without a hat. Your
heart puffed and flowered like sheets drying on a line.
And when you were a tree, you listened to the trees and the tree
things trees told you. You were the wind in the wheels of a red
bicycle. You were the spidery Maria tattooed on the hairless arm
of a boy in downtown Houston. You were the rain rolling off the
waxy leaves of a magnolia tree. A lock of straw-colored hair
wedged between the mottled pages of a Victor Hugo novel. A
crescent of soap. A spider the color of a fingernail. The black nets
beneath the sea of olive trees. A skein of blue wool. A tea saucer
wrapped in newspaper. An empty cracker tin. A bowl of blueberries in heavy cream.
White wine in a green-stemmed glass.
And when you opened your wings to wind, across the punchedtin sky above a prison courtyard, those condemned to death and
those condemned to life watched how smooth and sweet white
cloud glides.
After Reading Questions: Connecting Texts across Genres
1. INFERENCE: Reread the first line of the poem? What do you think the author means when she writes, “Before you
were a cloud, you were and ocean…”?
2. IMAGERY and MOOD: In this poem, the author talks about her friend by sharing several images instead of explicitly
telling the reader about how they feel about the person. For example, Cisneros writes, “You were the wind in the
wheels of a red bicycle.” What might she be saying her about her friend through this metaphor? What effect do the
series of images have on the overall mood of the poem? Choose two images to focus on and explain your answer is
detail, and use evidence from the text.
The mood of the story is….
This image from the poem helps to create the mood of…
This image from the poem helps to create the mood of….
Explain-
Explain-
3. THEME: What is the main message (theme) of this poem? Use at least two details/evidence from the story to help
support your answer.
Theme in the Poem “Cloud” is…
Evidence/Detail #1
Evidence/Detail #2
4. THEME: Universal themes are themes that can be found across genres. Describe how the theme this story relates to
the theme in “A Christmas Memory”. Use details from both stories and create a theme that can apply to both texts.
Review “A Christmas Memory” if necessary and first fill out the chart below in order to determine a theme. This will
help you compare the two texts and determine a universal theme found in both texts. (GO BACK AND LOOK AT
WHAT YOUR WROTE FOR THE THEME IN “A CHRISTMAS STORY” earlier on your “After Reading Questions”
assignment!)
Theme in the fictional short story “A Christmas Story”…
Evidence/Detail #1
Evidence/Detail #2
Universal theme found in both the poem and the short story is….
5. Authors present information in different ways, but often with the same purpose in mind. Cisneros presents her
feelings about her friend in the form of a poem and through various images and metaphors. Capote tells a plot driven
story that includes dialogue and flashbacks. Both authors purposely intend to create a specific mood and theme. Which
genre, the poem or the short story, is most effectively conveys mood and theme? Explain your answer using details.