Speak By Laurie Halse Anderson

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 main character, Melinda Sordino experiences a disturbing event over the summer of her eighth grade year. She was sexually assaulted by Andy Evans at a party. Melinda nearly loses her mind totally as she began shutting down on all fronts. However, she slowly recovered from her traumatizing experience, and eventually learned how to live with what happened.

Everyone has someone in their lives who can help make them strong and help them to speak out. In the book Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson the main character, Melinda Sordino, lost her voice and does not speak due to a traumatic experience. She went to a high school party at the end of the summer and met this boy named Andy. They danced a little, talked and kissed. Andy took Melinda out to the woods and raped her. She called the cops because she was so scared. When the cops showed up, they arrested people. Everyone knew Melinda called the police which makes everyone hate her. So she starts high school and has no friends and does not talk to anyone including her parents. But throughout the book there were three people who help Melinda find her voice.

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

To begin with, in the book “Speak” , by Laurie Halse Anderson, A girl named Melinda gets picked on by all her classmates, in her her freshman year at Merryweather High School in Syracuse, because she called the cops in the middle of a party. In that party she get sexually assaulted by a senior named Andy Evans. Since that party she started feel different,she doesn’t say anything because she thinks she is irrelevant in her school and home,her parents when they do sit down for a dinner they yell at her act like they care about how she is doing in school when they went 6 weeks without saying anything to her, they

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 .

Since one fateful evening at a high school party prior to Melinda’s high school career she has lacked necessary companionship to help her through her 9th grade year. She seems to isolate herself from the world entirely. Melinda Sordino says to us, “Shut your trap, button your lip, can it. All that crap you hear on TV about communication and expressing feelings is a lie” (9). This really sums up Melinda’s attitude for the time following the party gone wrong. As the year goes on Melinda begins to make new friends and even reconnect with some old ones. This helps her grow into a more mature person which helps her regain her previous personality and confidence. She thinks of herself as a new person and realizes that she needs to move on from the past. Anderson includes this in one of the closing paragraphs, “It wasn’t my fault. And I’m not gonna let it kill me. I can

Have you ever spent nights where you slept with hot tears rolling down your cheeks? Days where you wake up with the same nightmare as yesterday? Imagine that all you desired was someone to be beside you, to have a friend. “Speak”, by Laurie Hase Anderson reveals the bitter life of a high school outcast, Melinda Sordino. This story uncovers how Melinda manages to confess an appalling truth to a group of friends that despised her ever since she called the cops at an 8th-grade summer party.

Melinda’s at a high school party, where Melinda gets raped by Andy Evans, a high school senior student. Melinda got scared so she called the police. Melinda doesn’t speak up and tell her class mates why she called the police; she’s too afraid and mortified of what will happen if she told. She stops talking and communicating. Later in the novel, she

When Melinda, the character from Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson, gets raped her fear keeps her from letting people know. Melinda gets bullied and rejected and even cast aside by her supposedly “bestfriend” all because her fear won't let it out and nobody knows. They all think she is just a snitch that called the cops at a highschool party.

Melinda throughout the book shows the struggle of handling her problems on her own, she never includes her parents on what goes on at school. Even when its thanksgiving her mom had to go downtown to check on the store, and her father just ordered pizza after the turkey wasn't cooked correctly. Melinda wasn't acknowledged when she cleaned the yard after the hours she put into it, her father only said they needed to get a gardener to

She does not even defend herself when this is also the moment to do so. Melinda says, “The girl behind me jams her knees into my back. They are as sharp as her fingernails”, (p.29). In the book, it shows that Melinda’s house is not one of her comfort places, art class is one, though. Melinda goes to art class during lunch when she wants to express her feelings through art.

In this passage of the text, we can see how much Melinda has grown since speaking up. She is finally able to look past the incident and she is now working to make it so that it won’t affect her life anymore. This is a big change, as she went from being a shy girl who refused to tell anybody about what happened into being able to fully embrace her past and being able to move on with her life. Going forward a little bit, Mr. Freeman goes over to collect Melinda’s final project and asks Melinda if she has been through a lot. Melinda responds to these words by saying, “Let me tell you about it,” (Anderson 198).

Through the ups and downs of life everyone makes courageous decisions to improve people’s life experiences and those that surround us. The book Speak written by Laurie Halse Anderson talks about the ups and downs of high school while coexisting our personal lives. The main character Melinda gets assaulted at a party and has to work up the courage to talk about that night. It is important to be courageous in life to overcome obstacles and positively reach milestones. Many courageous people have accomplished huge milestones. Melinda may not have accomplished anything huge but Melinda did talk to Rachel about what happened that night, tells Andy no, and opens up to Mr.Freemen about everything. There was many more important moments but these were Melinda's most accomplished milestones.

Speak, written by Laurie Halse Anderson is about a girl named Melinda who is starting her freshman year of high school with a memory that has continuously haunted her since the summer. Melinda was involved in a rape and has been emotionally and physically affected by this traumatic incident. With her friends and family having no knowledge of what happened, Melinda is forced to find her own way to cope with it. In the novel Speak, Anderson shows the readers that art creates a feeling of personal fulfillment, self-discovery and relaxation by using point of view and symbolism.