"Write For Your Life is a literacy program that invites students to read and write about issues associated with their health and well-being. The project is grounded in the theoretically-supported conviction that students learn to read and write by reading and writing about issues that interest them.

The stories enclosed in this anthology are based on writing log responses students wrote as they read The House on Mango Street by Sandra Cisneros. Their own ideas grew from ideas put forth in the series of vignettes by Cisneros and took shape as they revised, shared their work, and found their own meaning in their voices.

These students were part of a Write For Your Life project conducted in fourth hour World Lit. Inquiry class taught by Ms. Linda J. Bush at Arthur Hill High School in Saginaw, Michigan. Other program sights include Saginaw High School, as well as schools in Detroit, Lansing, and schools in Milwaukee, Madison, and Platteville, Wisconsin.