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Popularity In Laurie Halse Anderson's Speak

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I am very popular, I am known by everyone and loved by everyone. Except for one person I am afraid he doesn’t like me but I have my friends. I wonder if he talks behind my back. I don’t even know his name. Probably for the best he is pretty weird. The mental effects that settle into the minds of young people that are popular or not can be devastating.
Melinda Sordino, the rape victim and protagonist in Laurie Halse Anderson’s book Speak, is not very popular. She barely has any friends and doesn’t trust many people in the school. Melinda does not try to become popular but instead uses her time to avoid teachers and ex-friends. She get's harassed by a Popular group called the Marthas, they make fun of Melinda when she is introduced to them. They comment about her hair, body, and lips in a negative way. Also Rachele Melinda ex-friend hangs out with popular people and …show more content…

The word popularity comes from the latin word popularitas Meaning fellow-citizenship. Popularity can affect a person mentally, according to psychologist, Mitch Prinstein, there are two types of popularity, how well you are liked and having a high status. Kids who have the popularity of “likeness” have more social opportunities because it creates new social skills. It makes us strive to have people like them and to feel connected. When your brain feels isolated it creates a pain that makes you go to social connections. During the age of 13-14 peers want people to think well about them. Popularity can make peers more likely to commit risky behaviors. According to Healthlandland.com, popular students are more likely to commit verbal and physical bullying and spread gossip. That popular people bully to make them more popular in their school. Melinda is not liked by a lot of people and deals with bullying from popular students like the Marthas and does not have many social

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Throughout the book, Melinda has problems with her family. For example, her family is mad because she is not achieving academic grade levels. Furthermore, she also has issues with her friends. She called the cops and her friends get mad.

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Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson is a book about a girl named Melinda Sordino. In the beginning of this book the audience meets Melinda as she is the main character and she describes her first day of high school starting with an assembly. Throughout the book you read about her life but she goes back to the past recalling of something that happened at the end of the summer; in a couple of instances she comes across someone that she refers to as “IT”. When reading you don't know who this “IT” is but it is developed over the story by her having flashbacks to that night or dropping a hint of what happened. During a seminar at the beginning of the book Melinda meets someone named Heather who is new and becomes her friend but ultimately leaves her

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A random students taps Melinda on the shoulder and asks if she’s the one who called the cops at the party hosted by Kyle Rodger. She nods people were making her feel guilty and horrible for what she did. The reason why she called the cops still remains a mystery but this explains why Melinda is isolated, and why Rachel stopped being friends with Melinda. whatever happened at the party traumatized her and haunts Melinda everyday.

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Also it’s showing that everyone does not think of her the same way. Melinda is also not blend in with everyone because she is wearing different clothes. In the end of the book, Rachel starts talking to Melinda again after she finds out Andy Evans raped her. Another part in the beginning of the book Heather starts making friends with Melinda but when Heather starts using her, Melinda stands up to her. Heather is super nice to Melida and invites her to do things, but when she meets the Martha’s she slowly started to leave Melinda behind until she needed something.

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He thinks he is the best and coolest person ever, but actually everyone hates him. He is always saying rude things. Summer is a girl in August’s grade, and she has blond hair. She is on the popular side of the grade. She has a kind heart and is super friendly.

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At the end of the story she finally found her voice and was able to stand up for herself. In the beginning, Melinda didn't talk to anyone, barely even to her parents. She says, “I have tried so hard to forget every second of that stupid party and here I am in the middle of a hostile crowd that hates me for what I had to do. I can't tell them what really happened” (Anderson, 28).

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Melinda is the girl in the book that gets raped by Andy Evans and no one knows about it until the end of the story. Rachel was one of Melinda’s best friend but, has totally turned against Melinda because Melinda called the cops at the party over the summer, but Rachel doesn 't know that Andy raped her. Heather is Melinda’s first friend in high school and was always here friend since she moved from Ohio, like Melinda did. Ivy is another one of Melinda’s best friends. She helps out Melinda a lot in art class and they both also dislike Andy Evans.

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They were still clearly upset about how she busted the party, so they ignored her. It’s hard to be friends with people that dislike you. The final reason I think Melinda is an outcast is because she barely spoke during her freshman year, both at home and at school. She was struggling in school, so she and her parents ended up in the principal’s office. The principal was talking about how her grades went down and that they should talk to her about it.

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Although the students she calls “Future Fascists of America” are not revealed, they in reality are just the student government minding their own business. Melinda and her negativity feel the need to insult them, but she does not reveal why she does so. The reader can see these thoughts Melinda has in her head and start to feel extreme dislike towards her as a character. Her attitude and actions that the reader does get to see, do not make her a favorable character and readers start to hate her from the beginning. Once the orientation is over, Melinda is dreading being there even more, and remarks that on the way to her first class, “I can’t find it and get my first demerit for wandering the

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Bullying is an undesirable, aggressive behavior among school aged children that involves actual disparity of power. According to Megan Brooks bullying is a serious public health problems, with significant short-and long-term psychological consequences for the child who is bullied and the child who is the bully. This only tells us that bullying can lead to difficulty that a certain children may experience and will have either short or long term problem. “Bullying has long been tolerated as a rite of passage among children and adolescents, but it has lasting, negative consequences and cannot simply be ignored.” Committee chair Frederick Rivera, MD.

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