Preview

Brief Summary Of Speak By Laurie Halse Anderson

Good Essays
Open Document
Open Document
444 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
Brief Summary Of Speak By Laurie Halse Anderson
BIBLIOGRAPHY -

Anderson, Laurie Halse . Speak . New York : Puffin , 1999 .

SUMMARY-

Melinda Sordino is a just starting her freshman year at Merryweather High School and is not off to a good start . Before school started Melinda attended a party with her best friend which ended in her calling the police for reasons the reader learns throughout the book . Her year starts rough with her friends not speaking with her and her not speaking at all . She begins to become slightly depressed and caves into herself , when it is brought to attention that art is a way to escape her thoughts. The reader begins receiving hints as to what happened at the party and Melinda starts to talk less and less . The only person who she would consider
Continue Reading
View Writing Issues

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Good Essays

    Summary and Review of 'One Voice' by Susan Madera
    • 422 Words
    • 2 Pages

    Summary and Review of 'One Voice' by Susan Madera

    My verbal language has always been a large aspect of my personality, and I believe it is also like this for everyone else. From my very early toddler years, the way I have learned to speak has been in hands of my environment, not mine. My voice is who I am, where I come from, and where I have been.…

    • 422 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    Analysis Of Laura Hillenbrand's Unbroken
    • 1142 Words
    • 5 Pages

    Analysis Of Laura Hillenbrand's Unbroken

    Laura Hillenbrand’s Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience, and Redemption follows the story of Louie Zamperini, a rebellious child who grew up to become one of the fastest runners of the 1930s. He competed as an Olympic track runner in the 1936 Berlin Olympics. The future was looking bright for Zamperini before World War II began, which resulted in the Olympics being cancelled and Louie being drafted into the Army Air Forces as a bombardier. Midway through 1943, his B-24 crash landed in the Pacific Ocean. For weeks, Louie and two other men drifted westward across a seemingly endless ocean, accompanied by a pack of sharks and surviving on scraps of bird and fish meat and the occasional rainfall. Eventually, he arrived in Japanese…

    • 1142 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    Summary of the book Gravity by Abigail Boyd
    • 518 Words
    • 3 Pages

    Summary of the book Gravity by Abigail Boyd

    Deciding to go out into her backyard after seeing that a new girl has moved in next to her, Arielle meets Theo, a shy yet amazingly artistic and fun-loving fifteen year old girl from Arielle’s art class. They become fast friends, bonding over mutual disgust of the people in their school and comfort with each other.…

    • 518 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Commentary On Speak By Laurie Halse Anderson
    • 193 Words
    • 1 Page

    Commentary On Speak By Laurie Halse Anderson

    My favorite book is Speak written by Laurie Halse Anderson. The book is based on high school freshman Melinda Sordino. The August before her freshman year, her and her closest friends attend a party containing seniors and beer. Melinda gets drunk and eventually walks outside to take a breath where she meets upcoming senior Andy Evans. After making Melinda uncomfortable by dancing with and kissing her, Andy pushes Melinda to the ground and rapes her. She calls 911 and gets the party broken up, but is too scared to speak up about being raped. Everyone finds out that she is the reason the party was busted, and her friends no longer speak to her. Throughout the story, Melinda faces the realities that are associated with being raped. She is now…

    • 193 Words
    • 1 Page
    Satisfactory Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    Mango By Mia Winchell Summary
    • 783 Words
    • 4 Pages

    Mango By Mia Winchell Summary

    Mia Winchell is a 13 year old girl who lives in the countryside down South with her family and her cat, Mango. Mia has a special secret that she has been hiding for 13 years. This secret keeps her apart from her classmates, her friends (including her best friend), and even her family. The book opens during the summer between 7th and 8th grade, and the story unfolds over the next few months. As she begins her final year of middle school, Mia decides that she no longer wants to keep this important detail about herself private. She decides to tell her family and friends this unusual fact about herself - that sounds, numbers, and words have color for her. Her courageous journey towards sharing this private information, as well as the responses and reactions of those around her, comprise the rest of the story.…

    • 783 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    Dialectical Journal Melinda Sordino
    • 191 Words
    • 1 Page

    Dialectical Journal Melinda Sordino

    As the narrator, Melinda Sordino, awaits her first day as a freshman at Merryweather High she describes, “the school bus wheezes to my corner” (pg 3). The authors’ use of personification describes the heaviness and panic that is set into the setting. When Melinda arrives at school, she describes, as others’ talk behind her back, the feeling that “words climb up my throat” (pg 5). This personification describes the want to speak up but is silenced by her feelings of anger and disparity. Melinda’s experience so far at high school hasn’t been perfect, but has rather worn her out “my bed is sending out serious nap rays… The fluffy pillows and warm comforter are more powerful than I am” (pg 16). This passage shows that she would…

    • 191 Words
    • 1 Page
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Powerful Essays

    Speak Data Sheet
    • 1608 Words
    • 7 Pages

    Speak Data Sheet

    Summary & Theme: The book Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson is about an incoming freshman named Melinda Sordino. She’s riding the bus to school but she doesn’t have any friends to sit with. While she’s looking over the crowd of kids on the bus she spots her ex best friend, Rachel, but even she mouths “I hate you.” After Melinda attends her first few classes she already hates high school. When she gets to Art class she is assigned a subject that she must turn into art for the rest of the year. Melinda receives the word “Tree” and doesn’t understand how to make that creative. She asked to switch but her teacher wouldn’t let her. Later on, she meets a girl named Heather in one of her classes, although they are completely different people, they start to hang out. Heather really wants to become popular and would like Melinda to help her. She couldn’t care less about popularity but continues to nod and agree with Heather. A couple weeks later, she discovers an old janitor closet that no one uses; she decides to make this her hideaway. She decorates it to her liking and sits in it when she needs some space. Due to Heather’s plot for popularity, Melinda finds herself caught up in helping her impress “The Marthas”, a clique Heather wants to become a part of. Soon enough, Heather tells Melinda that they can’t be friends anymore because they are too different and that she is really weird and depressed. For the first time, she actually wants to be friends with Heather; for Heather is the closest she has to a friend. Melinda starts to skip school more and more and her grades slip. Her parents are angry and disappointed, so they have a meeting with the principal. They try to get her to speak up about why she is acting out but she just stays silent. Her punishment is in school suspension; Andy Evans is there with her. All the memories from an incident in summer…

    • 1608 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Powerful Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    What Is Melinda Sordino's I Am An Outcast
    • 460 Words
    • 2 Pages

    What Is Melinda Sordino's I Am An Outcast

    "I am an Outcast" (4). Melinda Sordino is considered an "outcast" in school since the accident. It's her first year of high school and she's already failing her classes and at her social life. Melinda fails to speak up for herself several times in the book. A few times she kept quiet was when some girls were kicking her, when her parents were yelling and when Heather needed her.…

    • 460 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    Character Analysis Of Speak In Laurie Halse Anderson's Speak
    • 550 Words
    • 3 Pages

    Character Analysis Of Speak In Laurie Halse Anderson's Speak

    This passage from Laurie Halse Anderson’s novel Speak shows how the main character, Melinda, has to face and overcome her biggest fear, speaking up against Andy Evans. When Melinda gets locked in the closet with Andy Evans, she is scared for her life. She sees him as “made out of slabs of stone”(193). Melinda still thinks of Andy as an invincible beast and she is still obscenly afraid of his strength. She envisions his hands as “enormous”(193). Therefore showing how frightening his size and physique is. She knows he can and will rape her again if she does not do anything about it. Melinda tries to scream but the “only sound [she] can make is a whimper” (194). Her best attempt at calling out for help comes out as a whimper. She uses the word “whimper” to describe the sound she made was as if she is a small animal, hurt by a larger predator, and that what is occuring in the closest.…

    • 550 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    Use Of Literary Technique In Laurie Halse Anderson's Fever 1793
    • 705 Words
    • 3 Pages

    Use Of Literary Technique In Laurie Halse Anderson's Fever 1793

    The Yellow Fever epidemic that raged through Philadelphia in 1793 changed life for Philadelphians who survived the outbreak of the disease. A historical fiction novel, Fever 1793, by Laurie Halse Anderson, took place in this advanced, busy city when the Yellow Fever came to town. Matilda “Mattie” Cook, the main character of the novel, has to learn how to survive the fever and keep herself and the ones she loves alive while doing it. All through the novel, Matilda learns a lesson about how saying goodbye to people she cares about is difficult, and has to learn to accept the pain that lingers afterwards - something that Anderson also shows through her use of repetition of flashback in the novel.…

    • 705 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Forge by Laurie Anderson Literary Analysis
    • 599 Words
    • 3 Pages

    Forge by Laurie Anderson Literary Analysis

    Forge is Laurie Halse Anderson’s second installment to the Chains series following up her previous novel, Chains. The escapades of the young African American slaves, Isabel and Curzon, continue in this sequel to Chains. Young Curzon and Isabel are forced to endure the hardships of maturing during the demanding time of the American Revolution. Curzon and Isabel are runaway slaves who have a high risk of getting captured with their past catching up to them every step of the way. Forge is told from the perspective of Curzon in a journal-like fashion, each entry has a date. Laurie Halse Anderson had a team of researchers gather an immense amount of information on the American Revolution and the time period to make her Historical Fiction novel as realistic as possible. By making Forge’s novel structure journal entries from Curzon’s angle, Anderson was adept in making the reader connect, investigate, and comprehend his character and the American Revolution further.…

    • 599 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    Character Analysis Of Dillion And Jazz Luther In The Book 'Define Normal'
    • 621 Words
    • 3 Pages

    Character Analysis Of Dillion And Jazz Luther In The Book 'Define Normal'

    In other words, she sees the looks teachers give her, and it inspires her to do better in her school work and prove to them that her image does not define her personality. Her mother tries to get her to act like the rich kid she is, but the more her mother tries, the more she rejects the idea and rebels. She wears black and dyes her hair unnatural colors to hide where she really comes from, a rich family. She also hides her love for playing piano because she does not want to be classified as a rich kid, but doing so gets classified as a punk or a goth. Antonia, the other main character, is classified as smart or a teacher’s pet, so a teacher’s pet and a punk; that is not usually the types that are best friends. In the beginning of the book, they did not even want to be seen together. By the end of the book , that did not matter anymore because they were proud of each…

    • 621 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Better Essays

    Popularity In Laurie Halse Anderson's Speak
    • 1216 Words
    • 5 Pages

    Popularity In Laurie Halse Anderson's Speak

    Popularity being harmful seems like an oxymoron. Popularity is something so many people strive to have- to be respected, accepted, admired, even envied. But when that need to ‘fit in’ turns sour, most people never see it coming. The book Speak, by Laurie Halse Anderson, shows the detrimental side of popularity not often considered by kids, and rarely mentioned in books. Speak is about a girl named Melinda and her first year in high school, where, after being raped by a popular kid, experiences bullying, exclusion, depression, and a myriad of different issues, in addition to not speaking. So Melinda withdraws into herself, indirectly because of popularity. Popularity in Melinda’s high school plays both a complicated and consequential…

    • 1216 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Better Essays
    Read More
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Speak- Critical Lens
    • 266 Words
    • 2 Pages

    Speak- Critical Lens

    Another evil that Melinda experiences is Heather using their friendship for her own benefit. The literary element used here is character. One prime example of this is when Heather asks Melinda to help decorate the staff room for Thanksgiving. Melinda helps her just wanting to keep her friend happy. When Melinda’s decorations are praised, Heather takes all the credit. Melinda overcomes this evil by telling Heather she won’t help her decorate for the prom. Heather on her own does a horrible job and all off the seniors end up hating her.…

    • 266 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
    Read More
  • Powerful Essays

    Book Report for Susan Scott s Fierce Conversations
    • 1380 Words
    • 4 Pages

    Book Report for Susan Scott s Fierce Conversations

    In order to be truly “fierce” we must get real, first with ourselves and then with the people that matter most to us. We must ask ourselves, “What it is that I am pretending not to know? What conversations have I been unable or unwilling to have that, if I were able to have, might profoundly change everything?” The harder the conversation is to have, the more important it may be, and the more important you have to do it right.…

    • 1380 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Powerful Essays
    Read More