Overcoming Obstacles In Speak By Laurie Halse Anderson

Melinda, the main character of speak was raped at a summer party. She calls the cops and that is where it all started. When Melinda reaches high school she is faced with all her old friends. They all hate her and want nothing to do with her, because of her calling the cops. Throughout the whole book Melinda runs into tough situations that eventually lead to her standing up for herself. Eventually, everyone finds out the truth, of why Melinda calls the cops. Although Melinda learns to stand up for herself, throughout the book she shows signs of depression such as poor performance in school, sadness and hopelessness, and withdrawal of friends and activities.

In the novel Speak, written by Laurie Halse Anderson, a young girl, Melinda Sordino, is entering high school after a distressing summer, because she was raped. As the book progresses, Melinda’s actions transform her from mentally unstable to finally feeling free. Melinda thinks that her parents do not pay attention to her, and while she is hiding in her closet, she decides to, “[I] open up a paper clip and scratch it across the inside of [my] left wrist” (Anderson 81). Melinda’s hurtful actions of self-harm reveal her desperation for her parents to notice her, and how mentally unstable she is. Regardless of how she acted, Melinda changes throughout the book and towards the end, she acts with conviction in the girl’s bathroom with Ivy. Ivy is

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

“Mother Tongue” is an essay by Amy Tan that examines the ways in which people treat those who do not speak or act like them. Simply, how people perceive those that are different . The main purpose of “Mother Tongue” is to inform the readers of the ways they might intentionally or unintentionally be treating people who speak broken english as Tan’s mother does. This essay highlights the extreme importance of language and how it connects with everyone’s day to day lives.

Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson tells the story of Melinda Sordino, a ninth grader that attends Merryweather Highschool in Syracuse, NewYork. The author has a unique way of writing Melinda's story. She uses subtitles instead of chapters, nd goes into detail of Melinda's everyday life, by using Melinda's perspective. The author sets a depressed mood in the story because of what the main character has gone through. The central idea of the text is communication which in the beginning Melinda lacks. August before her freshman year, Melinda and her friends show up at a senior party. At the party, Melinda ends up drinking. Andy Evans takes advantage of her drunken state and rapes her. She is too drunk to defend herself. Afterward Melinda deals 911 and the police arrive at the party, but Melinda is unable to confess what happened. When the entire school knows that Melinda was the one who called the police, everyone, including her friends, stopped speaking to her. No one knew the real reason behind the 9-11 call. Throughout the school year she cuts her wrist, skips school, and fails her classes. Melinda goes through a tough time in high school. She has one friend (who later on in the book betrays her), a difficult family, and was a victim

Have you ever drawn a picture to express something, or just drawn it for fun? Well Melinda uses her drawings to express her feelings and get away from the world. I think the in the story “SPEAK,” by Laurie Halse Anderson, She uses Melinda's artwork and the tree to express the fact that Melinda got raped and afterwards, when she looked up... and saw... a tree.

Laurie Halse Anderosn has written a book which is considered as a trauma novel “speak”. Usually anger is a phase that begins with madness and ends with regret, but in this book anger will be tackled in different way, Melinda’s anger starts with silence and ends with speaking. In other words it’s starts with fear and ends with triumph over self. Over the course of the novel silence struggling with anger is leading to speak. Anderson incorporated all themes in anger direction with different techniques such as flashback, allusion, symbolism, and fragmentation.

Laurie Halse Anderson's Speak is a fictional novel set in Syracuse, New York at Merryweather High School. The main characters consist of two teenagers: Melinda Sordino, the protagonist, and Andy Evans, the antagonist. The conflict is caused by Andy, who raped Melinda at the end-of-the-Summer party. Melinda Sordino busted an end-of-summer party where she was abused and now she is an outcast dealing with depression. Towards the end of the novel, Melinda finally fights back as Andy tries to rape her a second time.

In “Speak” by Laurie Anderson, Melinda a teenage girl who is struggling to find friends in high school because of an incident at a party. It all started the summer going into freshman year when Andy Evans raped Melinda at a party, resulting in Melinda calling the cops. Since then only a few things are keeping Melinda going her freshman year like art and her few friends. Everyone thinks of Melina as the girl who called the cops now and nobody wanted to be her friend. Until she met a new girl Heather but, that friendship didn't last long. The closet incident with Andy played the most important role in changing Melinda’s identity. Melinda’s identity changed from being depressed and isolated to being happy and having friends once people found out what Andy did to her. This matters because now Melinda doesn't have to keep the secret about why she called the cops on the party because now people will believe her. This shows that people should not be afraid to tell the truth when they know it's the right thing to do no matter what.

There are some books that you look at and you read but that’s it, there’s nothing more for the book to offer. Although, sometimes those books that seem the simplest, or even short stories, can actually have much greater meaning to them that goes farther in than could ever be imagined. Skilled writers do this through various methods using rhetorical devices and by adding hidden meanings to even the smallest of details that are easily missed by an untrained eye. One of these pieces of literature would be Bess by Jayne Anne Phillips, a very short story that when read gives off an odd vibe but nothing more, at least until further analyzed. In this short story, the author is able to effectively construct a masterpiece of literature by breaking down

Chris Rexroth 4th hour 11/16/14 Laurie Halse Anderson asserts, through the utilization of similes and symbolism in Speak, that in order to heal, we must forget the past. Throughout the whole story, Anderson made the most of symbolism to show that not forgetting the past hurts us. For example, while dissecting a frog in biology class, Melinda explains, “Our frog lies on her back.

Throughout this fragment of Speak, Laurie Halse Anderson portrays Melinda with an introvertive voice. Melinda is having a hard time warming up to her new high school. The excerpt starts off with Melinda trying to find a place to sit in the lunchroom. “There’s that new girl, Heather, reading by the window. I could sit across from her. Or I could crawl behind a trash can.” (Paragraph 2) Melinda would rarther hide and go unnoticed than interact with other students. This quote shows us that she’s willing to take great measures to avoid being observed. Another example of diction was when Melinda was seen without a hallway pass by Mr. Neck, and when she was asked to explain herself, she just thinks to herself: “It is easier to not say anything… Nobody

Hook Background-TITLE, Author In the book Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson, Anderson talks about a girl named Melinda and all those around her. Anderson constantly underlines areas where the characters in the book disregard events happening in the environment around them. Thesis

In novels, authors write works of literature for all their readers. Authors use literary elements to create a meanings for us to uncover. Sometimes, these meanings may not be too explicit. As we understand the tools that authors use, we can identify the meaning behind their work. One example can be found in the novel Speak by Laurie Halse- Anderson. In this novel, most words are used to enhance the meaning behind the title.

Symbolism is utilized to advance the theme of Speak and The Third and Final Continent. Each of these literary works uses some type of symbolism as a way to develop their theme. Notably, in Speak, talking is used as a symbol of Melinda’s progress in moving past her rape. For example, in the beginning of the novel, the author wrote, “It is easier not to say anything. Shut your trap, button your lip, can it. All that crap you hear on TV about communication and expressing yourself is a lie. Nobody really wants to hear what you have to say” (Halse Anderson 9). Explicitly stated, Melinda is bitter about her trauma, and (at this point) is far from moving past what had happened; she refuses to even acknowledge that speaking up about her rape could help. In contrast, during a scene towards the end of the novel, when Melinda’s rapist, Andy, is once again trying to