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Commentary On The Book Speak By Laurie Halse Anderson

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“The world suffers a lot. Not because of the violence of bad people, but because of the silence of good people”. Most teens feel socially unaccepted and emotionally unaccepted to speak up depending on what situation they have gone through. In this essay the main focus will be on the book Speak. But there is also gonna be information on the play's Other schools of thoughts and Skin & Liars. Speak is about a teenage girl, Melinda, who gets raped at a party, and calls the cop. Melinda never told anyone why she calls the cops. So everyone in school starts hating on her, including her best friend, Rachel, this make her feel like an outcast.Majority of high school students has to face great difficulty to express their feelings or their opinion publicly. …show more content…

This happens when teens feel unaccepted in high school or sometime a situation (rape) she/he had been through before/during high school. In the book Speak, one of the statement states “I have entered school with the wrong hair, the wrong clothes, and the wrong attitude and I don’t have anyone to sit with” (Anderson 4). Having a good appearance is “important” in high school, if you want to feel accepted or wanted.. In the book Skin & Liars it states,”what about when people call you name on the streets?...What about when people stare to you?”.This statement prove that high schoolers care about their appearance so they can impress other High Schoolers and become popular. Another point in this statement is if you don’t have a positive attitude, then no one would want to be “friends” with you. High school students check on how you act with other people to see if you are good enough to be friends with them. Another point, is that Freshman students hang out with their elementary school friends in the beginning of the school year to show everyone that they should be friends with her/him too or to show them he/she is popular

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Speak was written in 1999 by Laurie Halse Anderson. The book is about Melinda, a freshman just starting high school. Melinda starts school off with no friends, she lost the ones she had over the summer. A traumatic event causes Melinda to shut everyone out, and not speak to anyone. Growing up usually takes time, but Melinda is rushed into maturity too soon and must help others do the same.

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Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson should be mandatory reading for 8th graders due to its take on how trauma can affect the lives of its survivors. Through completed writing, the National Book Award finalist and Golden Kite Award winner, Laurie Anderson captures the thoughts of Melinda Sordino. After she gets raped and has to deal with a misunderstanding that leaves her silent and outcast. This short book of 224 pages is mostly written in short statements. From casual thoughts such as, “I zone out,” to ones with impact like, “Why go to school.”

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44 percent of rapes are people who are under 18, what if you were in the 44 percent? That's what the book “Speak” by Laurie Halse Anderson depicts. In this book a girl named Melinda was drunk and got raped at a back to school party. And all she can do is think to call the police for help, but she doesn't realize that she is about to get almost everyone in there school busted for drinking. Everyone finds out she called the police at the party and everyone neglects and hates her for getting them in trouble.

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Yasra Alsaudi Ms.Voccio English 10H/ 3 23 March 2017 Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson dialectical journal theme/ literary device quotes commentary isolation As Melinda is on the bus she thinks to herself, “I close my eyes, this is what i’ve been dreading. As we leave the last stop, i am the only person sitting alone”(11). Melinda Sordino has just started her freshman year in Merryweather high school.

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High school. It's a scary thought. Being prepared for things can be hard. Especially the changes that happened within one's identity. Imagine something terrible happened the summer before high school.

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Speak is a novel by Laurie Halse Anderson. The author’s purpose in writing this book was to tell a story about sexual assault and to show real-life victims that things do get better. There are 198 pages present. Speak has won many awards such as A Michael L. Printz Honor Book, a SCBWI Golden Kite Award, and BCCB Blue Ribbon, along with many others. Every character in this book plays an important role; however, three important roles in particular are Melinda, Heather, and David Petrakis.

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Short Writing Assignment: Explaining IT to My Teacher In the novel Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson, the main protagonist, Melinda, stated that she hates “IT”. Although we don’t know who the person “IT” is, I predict that “IT” is an outgoing, and untrustworthy person. Here are some reasons why.

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In the novel Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson the main character, Melinda, often turns to nature to provide an inspiring story for her feelings of hopelessness to fall back on. Though it is not always blatantly stated, while Melinda comes to terms with the fact that she has been raped nature provides parallels to Melinda's life, symbolizing changing sentiments as they occur. This symbolism manifests in Melinda's interests, the seasons, and her art project. Melinda often mentions plant seeds throughout the story. Melinda's first mention of them is in Biology class when the class dissects apples.

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The book Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson, is about an outcast girl named Melinda, someone that slowly got destroyed by a big event that happened at the end of summer party. This event leads to depression, anger, sadness, and most importantly Lack of communication with the art I did for this are things like parents not explaining things to each other or random lines all over the place when people are talking, this relates because when Melinda spoke nobody believed her or even heard her. The theme is that sometimes the lack of communication can lead to bigger problems. Now talking about the art on the paper, the main thing is a tree because I feel like Mr. Freeman saved her, making Melinda see that art is so much more. When he talks about when

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The theme of self growth and isolation can be seen throughout the novel Speak (1999) by Laurie Halse Anderson, which follows the main protagonist, Melinda Sordino through her freshman year. When Melinda is first introduced, she mentions a secret that she is afraid to talk to anyone about. Melinda later reveals to the readers that she was raped by a high school senior at an end of summer party. Everyone at school acts hostile towards Melinda for calling the cops and ruining what was the best night of their lives, unbeknown to them, that night still haunts her dreams. This causes Melinda to become isolated from everyone, as they only see her as the freak who called the cops.

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Hasn’t everyone lost the ability to speak when needed? Speak the Novel is about a girl named Melinda, who is afraid to speak to anyone. She used to have a friend name Heather before losing her to the Marathas. Her family at home argued with Melinda about her grades. The two factors shaped Melinda’s identify are her family and friends.

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The book I choose was Speak, by Laurie Halse Anderson. The book was published in 1999 on October 22nd. The book was also a finalist of the National Book Award. An interesting fact about this book, it was based off the author’s personal experience as a teenager.

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Our society is still filled with issues that have yet been uncovered. Though the time periods have change, the world still has not resolved all the issues that are still present from the past. In the two poems, “On Being Told I Don’t Speak Like a Black Person” written by Allison Joseph, the author shows how racial issues have still yet erased in our world today. In the poem, the author is faced with the issue of people criticing the way she talks. Just because she was black they assumed that she would sound uneducated.

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“‘Let me tell you about it’” (Anderson 198). These words were spoken by a character who struggled to find her voice but once she did, she grew as a person. The author who wrote these words is Laurie Halse Anderson. Born in October of 1961, Anderson has published many notable works as a New York Times bestselling author.

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One character accuses the other of something, to which he or she must immediately respond and defend himself or herself. The statements of each character are dependent on what the other characters have said before them; that is to say, most conversations between the African-American characters throughout the course of the play only occur due to some sort of accusation or inflammatory remark from another African-American

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