Not many English and Language Arts classes use contemporary novels and literature as part of their curriculum. Speak, by Laurie Halse Anderson, is a novel that has been and continues to be used in classrooms throughout the country whether it is in middle school or high school. This novel discusses issues that adolescents face in high school, which can help prepare early adolescents for what they need to know. The novel portrays real challenges that adolescent’s face. It presents an honest, real portrayal of experiences that occur in adolescence. Teens do not have the opportunity to learn about the harsh realities of adolescence when adults are not being honest and exposing them to the issues that some teens face. Reading and discussing these …show more content…
Due to the events that occurred the summer before her freshmen year, Melinda’s whole world turned upside down. After being raped at a party, and calling the police, she becomes hated by everyone. She doesn’t tell anyone about what happened to her, not even her parents. She is completely alone, both at school and at home. She struggles to cope with her rape, but it eats at her and starts to affect how she sees herself and life in general. Her grades are plummeting, she skips class, and she loses all sense of purpose. The only class she seems to tolerate is art class. This is where she seems to show her pain through the art she creates and where she is able to come to terms with what she is feeling and experiencing. This is where she feels safe and regains her voice (Anderson …show more content…
For example, one of the characters that used to be Melinda’s best friend starts to take on different languages and becomes part of the foreign exchange student’s clique. She changes her name, how she dresses, how she speaks, etc. This character changes who she used to be and decides to try and fit in with the popular crowd. These are all experiences that adolescents face during this time. It is very relevant because there are so many changes and transformations those teens face and sometimes they lose friends, as Melinda did, or they themselves are the ones who want to change who they
No Excuses The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls is a non-fiction autobiography about a woman recounting her less than normal childhood. Jeannette talks about her erratic, harebrained mother, her alcoholic, irrational but brilliant father, and her three siblings. She talks about her father’s plans to build a solar-powered house made entirely out of glass (hence the title of the book), and his promise to her that their family will be rich one day. The story takes place throughout her childhood, starting at her earliest memory.
The novel “Speak”, written by Laurie Halse Anderson first published in the year 1999, deals with Melinda, an “outcast” (p. 4), who experiences her first year of high school while simultaneously trying to cope with the aftermath of sexual abuse during a party, which consists mainly of her not being able to speak. Since we are all aware of the fact that Melinda’s traumatic event led to a certain degree of dehumanization for her, the following words intend to focus on and elaborate Melinda’s struggle in school; how she views her teachers, her marks, her periods and to some degree also her peers and classmates. Starting right at the beginning Melinda enters her high school life with a healthy amount of prejudice. Probably having heard or
I recently read the book Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson. The main character Melinda Sordino went through a lot during her summer. Her freshman year isn't off to a good start. During the summer she called the cops at a party, no one knew why she kept it a secret, but she soon tells of what really happened. She changed a lot throughout the story from being depressed, staying home and hiding in a closet at school, to becoming open and telling her secret of what happened to her.
It is estimated that 1 in 6 women will be a victim of attempted or completed rape, however, only 16-40% of all rape is reported. In the realistic-fiction novel, Speak, by Laurie Halse Anderson, 14-year-old Melinda becomes a victim of rape at a summer party and begins to hide from herself to avoid the past. Within the novel Anderson uses the mirror as a motif to show Melinda’s growth from hiding from herself to defending herself. After Melinda’s assault, she calls the police while watching herself in the reflection of a window. “I saw my face in the window over the kitchen sink and no words came out of my mouth” (Anderson 136).
“Speak” by Laurie Halse Anderson was first recognized as an inappropriate book in 2001 by Wesley Scroggins. Speak is about a girl named Melinda who is raped at a party by Andy Evans during the summer and she calls the police. She is socially rejected by her old friends. Her friends don’t know the whole story but only know that Melinda called the cops and ruined the most important part of the summer. But Melinda manages to find solace in her art class taught by Mr. Freemen.
In Connie Parkinson’s retirement speech, she takes advantage of her last moment as a teacher to warn us that we are losing our interpersonal connections. The culprit being cell phones. Through a laid-back style of speaking, Parkinson implores readers to acknowledge the harmful effects that come along with cell phone use. Passionate about her cause, Parkinson uses three different rhetorical devices to help get her message across: parallelism, syntax, and rhetorical questions. Examples of parallelism can be seen in a couple of different places.
Speak is a book that deals with a very dark subject. It is something that will need an open-mind and also a lot of empathy to comprehend. Our protagonist Melinda Sordino is a girl who was abandoned by her friend due to something she did at the end of the summer party. When school starts for her freshman year of high school,she an outcast, a nobody, someone who was forgotten, and a mute. The author Laurie Halse Anderson does a very magnificent job of putting the reader almost exactly as through what the protagonist experiences.
At first glance Sara Smolinsky looks like any poor Jewish girl. She is small and skinny but she has a powerful mind and voice that surprises others. When she speaks her true personality shines through. As she grows from 10-17 her priorities change and how she handles things changes. Sara is very strong willed when it comes to her own thoughts which is why her nickname is Blut-und-Eisen.
She had to go through hardships like: people dying, Dad goes to jail, and friends going to jail. First, she had her Dad go to jail because he was wrongly accused of something he didn’t do. Second, she had to go through school because if she didn’t she would have to go to a reform school so she decided to go to high school.
The speaker Elizabeth Gilbert did a wonderful job of delivering her message through her down-to-earth, comical attitude, passion, and confidence is her words. Her message, just as I mentioned before, was directed towards artists about how society puts such massive pressure of artists of every kind, especially in the case that these artists become very successful, explaining how we should view artists and all other people as having their own genius, rather than labeling select people as brilliant or amazing. She expresses that is the world develops this new view, then maybe it will level the playing field, and relive the wight off of so many of our
10332 Teenagers who are about to enter the real world need to find material that challenge or connect to them so they can understand life. In Ishmael Beah’s Memoir, A Long Way Gone, his memoir is not rigorous or relative enough to produce curriculum necessary for the SHS English IV department. Beah’s writing is easy to comprehend because the text does not give enough complexity for the students. Not to mention, Beah does not connect to a SHS Student because Beah was a child soldier from Africa, while most SHS students are from United States that have cognitive problems that stem from home.
The English curriculum of American high schools includes works such as To Kill a Mockingbird, Romeo and Juliet, The Great Gatsby, Lord of the Flies, and Macbeth. However, another book causes fierce debate about its inclusion in literary relevance. The Catcher in the Rye is one of the most controversial texts to grace the public education system with its heavy use of slang, mature scenarios, and bleak views of society.
Laurie Halse Anderson is an American writer who is famous for writing novels for teenagers and children. One of her novels, called “Speak”, is about the life of high school student Melinda Sordino, who suffers from being an outcast. This novel should be read by every school student as it describes the problem of socialization, adaptation and typical problems of teenagers. To begin with, the novel is filled with sarcasm, irony and fear.
How there are some situations that happen to the characters that change their lives. Most of the characters’ experience struggle and lesson to learn from. Just because you think you are stronger than everybody, does not mean you can overcome them. Candide Consistently had bad choices.
In Bobbie Ann Masons short story “Shiloh” it shows the struggle of a marriage trying to survive despite several problems. As in many relationships, the lack of socializing prevents the marriage from being perfect. Both husband and wife are unable to face the problems that they need to overcome if the marriage is going to survive. Mason places the story in the 1970’s in Kentucky during a political, economical, and social change. Shiloh is told from omniscient narrator.