Laurie Halse Anderson's Speak

In the book“Speak” by Laurie Halse Anderson, the main character is “Melinda Sordino who is a freshmen in highschool that is having tough times fitting in after she called the cops on a party she was in and now almost everyone hates her, but then along the way she finds some friends who help her out. The message of this story is that no matter what you do you can always come through and defeat your fears of high school.

In the novel Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson, the main character, Melinda Sordino experiences a disturbing event over the summer of her eighth grade year. She was sexually assaulted by Andy Evans at a party. Melinda nearly loses her mind totally as she began shutting down on all fronts. However, she slowly recovered from her traumatizing experience, and eventually learned how to live with what happened.

The novel Speak by Laurie Hales Anderson shows Melinda Sordino struggling through the year, and her recovery from the painful memory of getting raped at the party in summer break. In the beginning of the story, the story shows how bad Melinda feels and then she changes and starts growing and at the final stage of the story Melinda becomes a strong hard oaktree-like person. In the book Speak, the author symbolizes the tree to show Melinda’s change from being an outcast to being an accepted person; this also supports the theme: time can help heal one’s painful memories.In the beginning of the year, her trees looked like trees that existed nowhere on earth, but by the end of the year, her trees were breathing and looked as if they had shot up

In our novel Speak, by Laurie Halse Anderson, multiple settings are present. The overall setting is in a school called Merryweather High School in a small town. The main character, Melinda, describes her first day there, “we pass janitors painting over the sign...school colors will stay purple and gray…”(3, 4). The school mascot was the Trojans, but the janitors were painting over the sign because the mascot was changing. In the school, the overall mood is dark and angry. Melinda called the police to a party, and now she is a social outcast, therefore school is not a good place for her. However, there are a couple places inside the school that she feels better in. There is her art classroom, which is at the opposite end of the school, “The

Throughout Speak, names are given in certain instances to reflect on one's character. We see a whole bunch of names, good and bad given to people that affect Melinda in some way. In Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson, names are powerful. For example, Mr. Freeman’s name represents who he is as a character.

“It is my first morning of high school. I have seven new notebooks, a skirt I hate, and a stomachache,” (Anderson 3). These are Melinda Sordino's first thoughts as she enters her first year of high school. Melinda dreads having to be around so many people and is shunned by other students for calling the police at a summer party. She falls into depression and decides to stay silent about what happened. As the school year goes on, Melinda knows that she will have to face her biggest fear: to speak. Laurie Halse Anderson, author of Speak, uses numerous archetypes and allusions to put a powerful impact on readers. These archetypes and allusions make Melinda’s struggles relatable to real life problems and situations and reflect universal

The book, Speak, by Laurie Halse Anderson is a fictional story about the struggles a high schooler is faced with everyday. In this book, many different things are portrayed including: fear, rejection, tension, anxiety, etc. Although Merryweather High School is fictional and not what people presume of high school, it is very similar and has many of the same aspects such as the role of the teachers, the way people would clique together and leave others out, and how Melinda became known as a “loser.”

Symbolism in Speak Speak, by Laurie Halse Anderson, tells the story of Melinda Sordino and the personal challenges she faces after a traumatic incident during the summer before her freshman year of high school. Melinda's mouth, the janitor's closet, and trees are all symbols used throughout the text that exemplify Melinda's current state of mind. In a detailed essay, explain how one of these symbols portrays Melinda's growth. Include details and examples to support your explanation. *Include at least two quotes: Melinda is a young girl who is at a summer party and calls the cops.

Everyone has someone in their lives who can help make them strong and help them to speak out. In the book Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson the main character, Melinda Sordino, lost her voice and does not speak due to a traumatic experience. She went to a high school party at the end of the summer and met this boy named Andy. They danced a little, talked and kissed. Andy took Melinda out to the woods and raped her. She called the cops because she was so scared. When the cops showed up, they arrested people. Everyone knew Melinda called the police which makes everyone hate her. So she starts high school and has no friends and does not talk to anyone including her parents. But throughout the book there were three people who help Melinda find her voice.

In the novel, Speak, by Laurie Halse Anderson, Melinda Sordino is the 14 year old girl who was raped at an end-of-summer party. She finds herself struggling with her life and adjusting to what had happened. Melinda trudges through her freshman year of high school, being constantly reminded of the unspeakable experience. The only thing that gets her through her days, is art. Art gives Melinda the ability to grow mentally and physically stronger, allowing her to open up about her incident, accept what had happened, and confront who she is afraid of most.

Culture plays a huge part in how people are raised, and their perspective of the world we live in. Everyone sees the world differently based on their beliefs. The author of “Speak” (by Laurie Halse Anderson), show Melinda’s culture through rhetoric techniques such as imagery, allusion, and tone. The author uses imagery to show Melinda’s culture by using how she views certain rooms or areas in her eyes.

Melinda was an outcast and loner in high school who was overwhelmed, fearful, and confused with her life and her environment at school. She was always silent in class and afraid to speak in front of people. Many students today might feel the need to fit in with other people so they wouldn’t have to be looked down upon. As we take a look at Melinda’s life we’ll be able to see how she handles her daily conflicts. In the book, Speak, Melinda Sordino, an incoming freshman at Merryweather High, starts her year off with a terrible start. She’s stuck with a mean history teacher, by who she calls Mr. Neck and a whole bunch of other weird teachers like her English teacher of who she calls, Hairwomen, because of her crazy, uncombed

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 book Speak by Laurie Anderson is a book about how Melinda Sordino overcomes the troubles in her life, and how she learned to speak up for herself. The author uses a lot of archetypes and allusions throughout the book to add a fuller description to the events Melinda had gone through, which will help the readers to better understand what Anderson is trying to tell.

Recently I read the novel, Speak, by Laurie Anderson. Speak is a story wherein which a young girl named Melinda Sordino struggles with life as a freshman after calling the cops in at an end-of the-summer bash for unknown reasons. Since she won’t say why she did so, her peers now either ignore her or worse, talk to her. “The kids behind me laugh so loud so I know they’re laughing about me.” (pg. 2) People that were once her friends treat her as if she was never there or acknowledge her a not so positive way. I turn around, it’s Rachel… Her eyes meet mine for a second. ‘I hate you’ she mouths silently.“(pg. 3) Melinda is so traumatized by the incident that occurred at the party that she rarely speaks through words anymore and instead tries to