Change Is The Law Of Life In Speak By Laurie Halse Anderson

Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson is a coming of age themed fictional Novel based around Melinda Sordino, a freshman at Merryweather High School. During her days at school Melinda found trouble fitting in and speaking because of an incident that happened at a summer party. That incident being that she was raped by a senior named Andy Evans, aka, “IT.” At the time, Melinda panicked and ended up calling the police, which resulted in everyone despising her. Similarly to “high school drama,” the author illustrated gossip and the effects it can have on a person. To compare, when the news hit Melinda, she became silent and isolated staying away from any old friends she glanced upon. Fortunately, Melinda found new hope when a stranger asked, “I’m Heather

Speak is a cleaver and an ironic title for a story in which the main character chooses not to speak. The story is written in first-person narration from the point of view of protagonist, Melinda Sordino. Speak is written like an interior monologue in the mind of an introverted teenage girl, like excerpts from her personal diary during her miserable freshman year of high school. Instead of blending in and finding her way through high school. She withdraws and secludes herself from the other students. She calls herself an "outcast." Melinda is so desperate to hide from the world; she turns an old janitor's closet at the high school into her safe haven. She cuts classes to hide in her closet. How lonely could this teenage girl be? All

Speak, by Laurie Halse Anderson, is a story written in the first person about a young girl named Melinda Sordino. The title of the book, Speak, is ironically based on the fact that Melinda chooses not to speak. The book is written in the form of a monologue in the mind of Melinda, a teenage introvert. This story depicts the story of a very miserable freshman year of high school. Although there are several people in her high school, Melinda secludes herself from them all. There are several people in her school that used to be her friend in middle school, but not anymore. Not after what she did over the summer. What she did was call the cops on an end of summer party on of her friends was throwing. Although

The novel Speak, by Laurie Halse Anderson, features a fourteen year old girl named Melinda Sordino who lives in Syracuse, New York. The novel takes place close to present day, with the book being written in 1999, which is when the novel was written. Melinda comes from a middle class background and her parents are blue collar workers. Her mother works at a department store at the local mall while her father works in an office building. Both of her parents spend a lot of time at work and Melinda is an only child, which means she spends most of her time alone. The story begins with Melinda entering high school in her freshman year. The summer after eighth grade, Melinda and her friends attended a high school party. At the party, Melinda is assaulted

Since entering Havre middle school, I have noticed distinct changes in myself. Some people deals with all kinds of changes in life, but some people do not have to really deal with a lot of changes and stress. Some people have to deal with hard changes and some people have to deal with easy ones. Other people have to deal with stressful changes and some people do not. For instance, here are some of the changes I have to face:

"My first class is biology. I can't find it and get my first demerit for wandering the hall. It is 8:50 in the morning. Only 699 days and 7 class periods until graduation,"(6). Speak, by Laurie Halse Anderson, is a novel following the freshman year of Melinda, the narrator, who was a victim of rape at an end-of-the-summer party.

In the book “Speak” by Laurie Halse Anderson Melinda is going through a transformation, by explaining it in a form of trees. She is expressing herself not much by the form of speaking, but by the trees she creates in art class. It’s to explain on how she has been at her lowest and highest points in times. She faces all these transformations as from past events and future events in her high school. The majority of these events relate to her tree transformation from lowest to highest points.

Speak By: Laurie Halse Anderson Characters: Melinda Sordino: Melinda is the protagonist of Speak. She is the narrator of the story and is in the ninth grade. She begins the ninth grade friendless and depressed. She once had a lot of friends but they ditched her after she called the cops at a party because she was raped.

Symbolism is a commonly used literary device that uses symbols to represent other ideas which is seen very often in Speak, a novel by Laurie Halse Anderson. The chapters Little Writing On the Wall and Chat Room specifically have a lot of symbolism. These chapters are mainly focused on Ivy and Melinda in the girls bathroom and the writing on the bathroom walls. Also, they show Melinda finally starting to speak up about what’s happened to her. In Little Writing On the Wall Ivy accidentally gets marker all over Melinda’s shirt and they go to the bathroom to try and fix it, within that time Melinda sees the writing on the walls, anonymous conversations scrawled across the room.

The character Melinda of Laurie Halse Anderson’s novel Speak develop the theme of change throughout the story through her actions, words, and thoughts. First, in the beginning of the novel, Melinda was more isolated than the others because she chose not to communicate with anybody about her conflict and refused to talk to anybody, not even her parents. “One girl nods her head and says way to go. I hope you are okay” (Anderson 197). Melinda never communicated with anybody, verbally. In the end, when she screamed when she was being abused, her conflict was resolved. Because she chose to communicate, she also became quite popular throughout her school. Then, Melinda always thought about how terrible school is. “With hours left in the school year,

Walking into school on my first day of high school, I felt out of place. My face covered in acne, my teeth covered in braces, and the callicks in my hair stuck up through the abnormally thick layer of hair gel that coated them. My middle school social anxiety still ruled over me as I could barely speak with any member of the opposite sex. Yet, I still had an odd confidence about me. I had always been one of the best students in my class, even without ever studying for a test. I viewed high school as a slight uptick from the curriculum I had easily passed in middle school. I was wrong. High school exists as a microcosm of society, in which I originally failed to acclimate myself to the challenges posed to me in a setting of increased

A basic tenet in both fiction and in life is that change is inevitable, and for better or worse, it's going to happen. In the novel World War Z, lots of things are changing: society is on the verge of collapse, social hierarchy and status quo are thrown on their heads, and geopolitical relations devolve drastically, but valiantly manage to save the remaining thread of humanity. Evident changes and progressions in theme are to be expected in a novel, but a trickier task is to appropriate this change and apply its meaning to specific situations in our everyday lives. The transition from high school to being a freshman in college is one such scenario. There are certain aspects of human nature thematically explored in World War Z that do

Going into high school didn’t give me the effect I was expecting. Instead of my usual indifference about life, I found a light at the end of the tunnel. My entire outlook was shifted from one point of the spectrum to its opposite. Everything I thought I knew had been revised in way. My experiences in high school have done a great job in shaping how I perceive the world. Freshman year is when I began learning about the real world.

"Who Shall I Be?" An essay by Jennifer Crichton (1996) revolves around the idea that one cannot change although hiding what they were in the past or hiding what they don't like about themselves works. A student remains in a transition mode going through various good or bad experiences looking for that attractive clean slate. The life of high school is difficult as students tend to label other students and these labels may not represent the truth. There is a crisis of identity and time at college adds to this disorientation, students looking for a fresh start try to put on a likable character for others. This change is possible in college but within ones' self it feels embarrassing and an admission of weakness. There are two motivations behind this change; self-hatred (negative) and self affirmation (positive). Students tend to lie about their past or their families and try to play different roles looking for acceptability from others. In conclusion the author lets go of her adopted character looking forward to her life with what she has always been; an oversensitive and high strung would-be writer.

As a college student looking back fondly at my days in high school, it pays to remember that high school is a stressful and complicated time in people’s lives. Students are navigating an entirely different arena. They are trying to figure out who they are, trying to balance school work and soccer practice and parties, making and losing friends. High school is a time of uneasiness. However, it is also a time of change. Everything changes in high school. Well, everything but the assigned reading.