The story 'Eleven' by Sandra Cisneros follows an insecure girl named Rachel who, on her eleventh birthday, grapples with her complex emotions and insecurities, feeling simultaneously like a child and wanting to be wiser. Throughout a math class, she suffers from bullying about a red sweater that is mistakenly attributed to her, highlighting her vulnerability and lack of confidence. The narrative reflects themes of identity and the struggle of growing up, intertwined with Cisneros’ own background as a writer shaped by her childhood experiences.

1. ‘Eleven’
by Sandra Cisneros
(1991)
Mora Lemos, Juana Zufriategui, Sofia Mele, Anouk Laferrere and Belen Brito Peret

2. SETTING IN PLACE:
A MATH CLASS IN THE SCHOOL
POINT OF VIEW OF THE
1st PERSON

3. PLOT
The story Eleven is about a girl who becomes eleven but she
doesn’t feel that she is eleven, like any normal day. At school,
she passes through a very bad moment of insecurity, when she
didn’t know what to say like if she were five, and of
vulnerability, when she cried like if she were three. Hence, she
believes she doesn’t have only eleven, she is also all the ages
leading up to eleven(ten, nine, eight, seven, six, five, four, three,
two and one). Therefore, she wanted to be one hundred and two,
so she was wise enough to know exactly what say and how to
act. Obviously, while trying to deviate her mind on the cake and
family that waited for her later. However, all of these ends up
being a total confusion.

4. RACHEL
Rachel is the protagonist of the story who is turning 11. She is a very
childish and an immature girl that does not has much confidence on
herself. We notice that she is very timid among others, therefore, she is
not so popular in the school, and ends up being bullied and teased. In
addition, she is a quite vulnerable and sensitive person because of the fact
that as soon as she did not know what to do or say, she got in a roll herself
of nervousness, affected by the only fact that the teacher call her
attention. All in all, we can say that she was a weird girl who over
analyzed things too much, so she got very stressed and ashamed by
herself. Moreover, she thinks that all our ages get amassed like the rings
of an onion/tree.

5. CHARACTERS
MRS. PRICE: was Rachel’s math teacher, who appeared with a nasty red
sweater that apparently “was from Rachel”. Besides, when Rachel tried to
say to her that the sweater wasn’t hers, she did not listen to her.
SILVIA SALDIVAR: was one of Rachel’s classmates, who told everybody the
red sweater belonged to Rachel, only to bother her because she did not like
her.
PHYLLIS LOPEZ: was one of Rachel’s classmates, the real owner of the
disgusting red sweater.

6. TENSES
● SIMPLE PRESENT: “When you
wake up on your eleventh
birthday you expect to be eleven,
but you don’t”
● PRESENT CONTINUOUS: “In my
head I’m thinking how long till
lunchtime, how long till I can take
the red sweater and throw it over
the fence…”
● PAST CONTINUOUS: “ It’s been
sitting in the coatroom for a
month”
● PAST PERFECT CONTINUOUS:
“That’s when everything I’ve
been holding in since this
morning...”
● WILL: “There will be candles and
presents and everybody will
sing Happy Birthday”

7. I WISH…
“I wish I was a hundred and two”
“I wish I was invisible, but I’m not”
“I wish I didn't have only eleven years”
“I wish I was anything but eleven”
IF...
“If I was one hundred and two Iwould have known what to say when Mrs.
Price put the red sweater in my desk” - Type 3
“I would have known how to tell her it wasn’t mine instead of just sitting
there”

8. VOCABULARY
● SKINNY: a thin person. For example, she is too skinny, she has
to eat more.
● ITCHY: To have or cause an uncomfortable feeling on the skin
that makes you want to rub it with your nails. For example, I
can’t wear wool, it causes me itchy.
● RAGGED & OLD: old and torn clothes. For example, a
rough-looking man wearing ragged clothes

9. SANDRA CISNEROS
Sandra Cisneros was born and raised on December 20th, 1954, in Chicago,
Illinois, with six extra brothers,which often made her feel isolated . Most of her
childhood, consisted in moving from house to house in the poor Chicago South
Side neighbourhood, and the constant migration between Mexico and the USA,
which made her feel like if she was straddling two countries, but not belonging
to either culture. In 1976, she received her Bachelor’s degree in English Writing
in the Chicago Loyola University. Besides, she enrolled in a Creative Writing
Program in the University of Iowa, and won a Master in 1978. Furthermore, she
received a scholarship from National Endowment for the Arts, in 1982, which
permitted her to stay studying in Vence, France. All in all, thanks of all these
issues during her life, now, we know how she became the fantastic writer,
novelist and poet she is today.

10. Cisneros worked as a teacher, a counselor, a college recruiter and an art
administrator. She has maintained a strong commitment to community and
literary causes. In 1998, she established the Macondo Writers Workshop, which
provides socially conscious workshops for writers, and, in 2000, she founded the
Alfredo Cisneros Del Moral Foundation, which awards talented writers
connected to Texas. Later on, moreover, she received numerous awards for her
work, including the MacArthur Foundation Fellowship and the Texas Medal of
the Arts

11. THE END