Speak is a realistic fiction book written by Laurie Halse Anderson. It is a national book award finalist published by Square Fish Publications. Speak is a book that many adolescent girl readers can relate to. It allows readers to walk through freshman year with Melinda, and follow the conflicts she is facing. Many of the problems she faces are some of the same problems others face during their freshman year. Some of the problems she faces include: discovering who she is, finding the friend group that accepts her for who she is, and deciding whether or not to tell her big secret.
Speak is a book about a girl named Melinda Sordino who begins her freshman year at Merryweather High School in Syracuse, New York. Over the summer, she and her friends attended a party and Melinda ended up having to call the police. This caused everyone at her school to reject Melinda, and she was never able to tell her reason behind why she called the police. Melinda’s only friend and new student, Heather, tries to get Melinda involved in her
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• One thing I would have my students do is journal about problems they face in school. I would assure them that their journal entries would only be read by me, and that I wanted them to be completely honest when writing. If I had a student that I thought could relate to Melinda, I was give them a copy and Speak and encourage them to read it in their free time.
• Another way I would introduce this book to struggling students is hold a book pass in my classroom. In this book pass, I would encourage my students to examine each of the books thoroughly and ask them to pick one book that they could relate to the most. This way my students would be able to pick a book they wanted to read on their own, and they would also get a book that contained a character that was facing the same problems they were