Speak

Lessons Learned

There are many lessons that can be learned from Speak, mainly because a lot of the things Melinda, the main character, felt about are experiences that many teenagers have learned in high school. For example if you are not in a group or clan of some sort, you are an outcast and you may feel horrible. Also, if you do something in high school that affects other students, be that good or bad, you will be remembered as the person who did it for the rest of high school. For instance, in the book Melinda crashed a party by calling the cops and everyone remembered her for that until she spoke.

Melinda is a 9th grader who is bothered by something and doesn't tell anyone. The result of having almost everyone hate her caused her to let herself go and she began to bite on her lip until it bled. Unfortunately I see this happening at my school as well.

A. In the book, Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson, a young girl, Melinda, who used to be a "popular girl" is now an outcast. She used to be very social, outgoing, and loved until one night at a party. Things went wrong and Melinda called the cops. There was drinking and drugs at the party, but this isn't the reason Melinda decided to crash the party.

After that night, no one could forgive her. Her friends wouldn't talk to her, and everyone ignored her. No one wants to listen to Melinda's explanations, and well, Melinda doesn't even feel like talking to anyone about that night.

As the story goes on you find out that the real reason Melinda called the cops was because of rape. She was drunk and didn't know it happened until after it happened. She got so scared that she called the cops. When they showed up she ran and didn't say anything to anyone.

She had only one friend at the beginning named Heather. She seemed to show how Melinda used to be like. Happy, and very spirited. Eventually though Heather became a part of "The Marthas" (an exclusive group of girls) and abandons her. She again feels horrible and wonders why she ever trusted her. But again she begins to get better. She talks to a couple old friends, who seem to still have a grudge against Melinda but are willing to talk to her. She began to get better.

Melinda was into art at school and expressed all of her feelings through it. But she didn't like her year assignment. Everyone was given a topic that they had to center all of there projects around. When Melinda opened her paper, it read "trees". She had no idea what she was going to do with this topic but her art teacher, felt as if she could really open up through all her artwork. At first the tree's were bad, then they were all dead, then they were twisted and scarred, then at the end of the book the trees start to be more healing kind of wounded. The trees obviously reflect Melinda throughout the story.

One day