Speak, 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.

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

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.

When students are bullied, they are encouraged to speak up about it to a teacher or some other adult; however, many do not, because they may think their cases are not important enough to be told, because no one will believe their stories, or because they are embarrassed by what happened. As these cases turn from simple bullying to a more severe event, this inability to speak up only increases. Laurie Halse Anderson shows this effect with being raped, as well as the emotional damage that goes with it. Through Melinda’s experiences in Speak, Laurie Halse Anderson’s writing reflects the time in which it was written, her views on teens and the adolescent years, and her early life.

In Laurie Halse Anderson’s Speak, the protagonist, a freshman named Melinda must learn the key to recovery after enduring extreme trauma. She struggled to find someone to speak to, due to the school shunning her for calling the police at the party. Throughout Speak, Melinda seeks to recover from the trauma she experienced, especially the cruel actions from her ex-friends. Through symbolism, Laurie Halse Anderson displays the theme in Melinda's perspective.

In the book Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson, the author does something out of place or that the character wouldn’t do and it brings the book to a whole other level. The main character is Melinda and she has a hard time in highschool. She doesn’t have any friends and most of her teachers don’t like her. Also her and her parents don’t really talk to each other. They don’t have a connection with her like some parents have with their kids. So just from this you can kind of tell that Melinda of has no hope inside of her.

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.

A great leader acquires many strong qualities but the most important quality a leader can possess is being able to inspire other. In the book Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson, the main character, Melinda, is having some trouble with her art project. A girl named Ivy decided to take action and help Melinda out with her project. “You’re better than you think you are,” Ivy says. She opens to an empty page in the sketchbook. “I don’t know why you keep using a linoleum block. If I were you, I’d just let it out, draw. Here---try a tree. We sit there trading pencils,” (Anderson 146). Ivy wants to show that there are other ways to go about things. She understood that Melinda was stuck and wanted to inspire her by starting her off with drawing and helping along the way.

When she starts school that fall, no one talks to her about what happened and Melinda ends up staying quiet. She tries to act like the event never happened and this has a very bad impact on her relationships at school. On her first day, it can clearly be seen that she is a social outcast. No one talks to her as they blame her for being the reason the party got busted. This further pushes Melinda into silence, eventually leading her into depression.

In the novel Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson, the message the author is trying to portray is that speaking and conveying your emotions is vital to expressing feelings.Talking to someone releases a sense of relief for now somebody else knows and that specific information is not as powerful to only the protagonist. Opening up to someone releases how the protagonist feels, which is vital because then that someone will help Melinda get past the event that occurred. If Melinda doesn’t speak up and convey her emotions to someone about the event that occurred, people will start treating her poorly.In the novel Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson, the message the author is trying to portray is that speaking and conveying your emotions is vital to expressing

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.”

In speak the books shows the melinda should talk to someone and get help. Reading this books helps me have empathy on others who have bad things done to them. At the end of the first part of the book melinda's problems are causing her to get bullied and made fun of by many high school students, like the freshmen

Throughout the book Melinda has problems with her family. like her mom calls her weird. And is mad about her grade that just makes it worse. And her father does not communicate with her mother .So that just starts more problems with the family .

Speak conveys the message that you have to use your own voice in order to be heard and you must listen to yourself in order to succeed. It conveys this message by using a girl named Melinda Sordino as a girl who was very outgoing in her past, but after being raped by a man named Andy Evans, she sort of lost her voice and couldn't speak for herself which disabled her ability to be heard by others. Melinda felt the need to set a goal of being able to speak again so she can listen to her own voice and not let anyone tell her she can’t do something when she really is perfectly capable and determined to live her authentic life again. After time and time again of trying to speak up, she realizes that if she can’t change herself back to normal quickly, she won’t be able to accept herself as a normal member of society. In the end, she was able to speak again and had completed her journey of being able to communicate

This event messes with her attitude, as well as her motivation to do things like create relationships with new people and keep her grades up. I think that the book addressed something which happens a lot more often in high school than people realize. Many girls are in a similar position as Melinda was, being scared to tell others about what happened to her even though telling other people would help her get through the situation she’s dealing