ESL ART -- CLASSES TWO AND FIVE -- STORY MAP -- "China's Little Ambassador

Understand Literay Elements, which are used in better understanding and analyzing parts of a story:

Story Map

Title:  China's Little Ambassador

Author:  Bette Bao Lord

Setting:  P.S. 8, Brooklyn New York -- 1950's

Characters:  Shirley Temple Wong, 10 year old Chinese girl from China, who is new to America and cannot speak English.

Shirley's mother, a strong and determined character who wanted to make her daughter the best representative of China (an ambassador)

Schoolmistress:  Principal of school, whom Shirley found very strange:  woman with blue curly hair that was stiff like a wig, blue eyes, not eyelashes and penciled in eyebrows, and also a high nose (unlike Chinese people Shirley knew)

Mrs. Rappaport:  Shirley's new teacher whose dainty and thin body, ironically, did not make her weak--she was a strong teacher with fiery red hair.

Mischeivous "new friends": 

Mr. P -- Story owner

Problem (Conflict):  Shirley doesn't understand English, and she is the only Chinese girl in the entire school (no ESL classes in 1950's).  She is vulnerable, and she wants to be accepted and feel part of the new culture, she so allows herself to go outside of the school during lunch, with her "new friends."

Event One:  Shirley and mother are in the principal's office at P. S. 8, and Shirley doesn't speak English.  She sees the principal for the first time and finds her strange looking.

Event Two:  Mother leaves, and Shirley stays, and the mother says that she must show her best and be "China's Little Ambassador."  Principal welcomes Shirley with a "wink," and Shirley responds with both eyes closed.

Event Three:  Shirley is in her new class and notices that all have different all colors, sizes, shapes of faces and didn't wear uniforms.

Event Four:  It's lunctime, and the "mischievous kids," her "new friends" gesture to Shirley to go with her to have lunch.  Shirley goes with them outside of school and has the "best time and the best lunch ever, even though she knows she is doing the wrong thing.

Event Five:  Mrs. Rappaport gives Shirley a letter and she is fearful that the letter is about her leaving the school.  Shirley doesn't give the letter to her parent until bedtime.

Solution (Resolution):  She is trembling when her father reads the letter, but then feels relieved that the letter was about how the teacher thinks something is wrong with Shirley's eyes.

Theme:  Choices and Decisions


Vocabulary Story Map

Feeling Words:
*Obediently, pg. 30
*Trembling, pg. 35
*"round and round like rocks," pg. 34
*honor, pg. 30

Describing Words:
*quizzical look, pg. 35
*dreaming elephants, cookies, pg. 34
*big smile, pg. 34
*footsteps louder and louder, pg 34
*flinched, pg. 34
*dainty bones, pg. 31
*red hair, pg. 31
*princial with no eyelashes or eyebrows, pg.

Action Words:
*talking, pg 29
*mother hissed, pg. 29
*snapped head down, pg. 29
*help up 10 fingers, pg 30

Story Problem Words
*guilty of not learning English when her father gave her material to learn in China, pg. 29
*pressure of "living up to" an ambassadorship, pg. 30
*leaving the school with mischievous "new friends," pg 33

Now, it is time to think of literary element called, "Point of View," and take the point of view from someone in the story, think of questions to someone else in the story, and write an interesting letter (including an art design and letter envelope).