Speak

There are a few mascots mentioned in Speak. The first mascot mentioned is, of course, the Trojan. Since the Trojan War was presumably fought over an adulterous alliance between Paris (a Trojan...

In the novel Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson, Melinda is given the task of working with a tree as her object for the year in Mr. Freeman's art class. This is not coincidental, as the tree symbolizes...

In the First Marking Period, Melinda is entering high school with no friends and no self-esteem. She has a dark secret that no one knows or understands. This secret creates conflict for the entire...

At first, it seems like this is a straightforward question. As other Educators have already laid out, there appears to be a series of events that have to take place for Speak to make sense. Without...

Describing Melinda's relationship with her parents could be summarized in the word "fractured." The relationship between Melinda and her parents is a fragmented one. They seem more concerned...

The most memorable quotes for me have to do with Melinda's major conflict and its eventual resolution. Many connect directly with the title. The first is the last sentence of this quote: It is...

In the novel Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson, the narrator, Melinda Sordino, experiences several forms of depression as well as, quite possibly, dissociation. After Melinda experiences an immensely...

Melinda's dry humor is illustrated in this statement, especially in the understated commentary, "roar":"the school board has come out against calling us the Devils. We are now the...

The never-ending mascot fight is one of the many aspects of high school that leave Melinda feeling jaded about the whole high school experience. The mascot is first mentioned on the second page of...

Melinda's parents' meeting with the principal and guidance counselor of Merryweather High demonstrates the failings of the school system to help kids in intense situations like Melinda's. Everyone...

Mr. Freeman gives Melinda a ride to the store and begins talking to her about art. When Melinda tells Mr. Freeman that she doesn't know what he means when he says that she needs to put more emotion...

Theme statements should describe an argument, or the author's stance on a certain topic presented in the novel. A theme statement regarding the topic of communication in Speak might be: "The theme...

During the 2nd marking period, in chapter 47, Melinda unexpectedly sees Andy in a donut shop. Melinda thinks to herself, Maybe he won’t notice me if I stand still. That’s how rabbits survive; they...

Speak is the story of Melinda, a freshman at Merryweather High School, who is carrying around a secret from the summer. She has lost touch with all of her former friends, and only refers to the...

When the protagonist of Speak, Melinda, sees a card on her locker on Valentine's Day, she feels conflicted. At first, she thinks it must be someone playing a trick on her and for a second even...

In Laurie Halse Anderson's novel Speak, the main character, Melinda, has few adults that she likes and can trust in her life. One of the reasons that her art teacher, Mr. Freeman, makes this list...

Melinda seeks places that will allow her to be anonymous. She finds the old unused janitor's closet and makes it her hideout. When she first enters it, she recognizes that no one has used it for...

The first physical description of Melinda emphasizes her lips, which are in bad condition because she is continually biting them. As a traumatized adolescent girl who has been sexually assaulted,...

A hyperbole is a figure of speech that involves an exaggeration to emphasize a point. Melinda Sordino continually uses hyperboles throughout the novel and is depicted as a relatively sarcastic,...

In Speak, the character of Melinda uses numerous allusions. This figure uses a reference to a place, past event, cultural trait, or literary work, allowing the reader to make a connection. usually...

Maya Angelou's novel, I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings, is often characterized as a work of autobiographical fiction. Angelou's novel is based on Paul Laurence Dunbar's poem Sympathy where he talks...

At the beginning of her freshman year, Melinda Sordino is ostracized for calling the police to a party the previous summer after she was raped by Andy Evans. Melinda is traumatized by the...

The novel has a mood or tone of anxiety and tension, interspersed with fear, resignation and then relief. The complexity of the mood of the novel reflects the difficult challenges Melinda faces in...

Throughout the book Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson, the reader learns that Melinda gives a lot of characters nicknames. Melinda does not give nicknames to everybody she comes in contact with,...

Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson takes place in Syracuse, New York. This is mentioned in the first chapter of the novel when Melinda tells us: The sun doesn't shine much in Syracuse, so the art room...

An important event from Speak is when Melinda finally stands up to Andy in the broom closet when he tries to rape her again and she fights back. Melinda finds herself trapped in the closet with...

Melinda, the narrator of the young adult novel Speak, describes her English teacher as follows: My English teacher has no face. She has uncombed stringy hair that droops on her shoulders. The hair...

Speak begins with a central mystery: what happened to Melinda? She is ostracized from her high school community for calling the police to bust a party over the summer, and she feels like she can't...

While frustrated by her English teacher's search for symbolism, Melinda makes an almost immediate identification with Hawthorne's work. She recognizes that what Hester endures is similar to her...

Speak, a young adult novel, was written by Laurie Halse Anderson and published in 1999. It tells the story of Melinda Sordino, a fourteen-year-old high school student who is struggling with life...

In Anderson's Speak, the main character, Melinda, is just entering high school and is considered an outcast by the entire school because she called the police on a party the previous summer when...

In Laurie Halse Anderson's novel Speak, art class is one of the few places Melinda feels comfortable. It is even a place where she can begin to express herself through her art. It shouldn't be...

Melinda stays silent due to trauma and fear. The summer before entering high school, Melinda was sexually assaulted at a house party. She ends up calling the police which causes her peers to hate...

I don't think that it can be said that Melinda changes as a student over the course of the novel. When the novel starts, Melinda is on her way to the first day of high school. Her first quarter...

In the novel Speak, the main character Melinda Sordino becomes the victim of sexual assault at a party after 8th grade. By the beginning of 9th grade, she finds herself a social outcast and an...

Melinda is portrayed as a rape victim who is so badly traumatized that she can barely speak. She also can barely look at her own image, and puts a poster of Maya Angelou--who famously was silent...

The book Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson is what we call a bildungsroman. This word translates to a coming-of-age tale, meaning a story that focuses on the main character's emotional, physical, and...

There is a definite allusion (direct or indirect reference to another piece of literature) to Alice in Wonderland at the very beginning of "Fourth Marking Period" in Speak. Melinda feels pushed out...

The fourth marking period contains much of the rising action, the climax, and the resolution of the novel Speak. The PTA gets upset about the new "Hornet" school mascot (mostly because of the...

Setting is absolutely an important element in the novel Speak, as the different settings tell readers a lot about Melinda's state of mind. One setting that is particularly revealing is Mr....

Mr. Neck is Melinda Sordino's social studies teacher in Merryweather High School. He is unprofessional, abuses his authority as a teacher, and bullies students. In chapter 27, Mr. Neck writes the...

The narrator's sarcastic and humorous observations contribute to the tone of the book. Melinda has just experienced something traumatic, and that experience—paired with her decision not to speak...

In the novel Speak, author Laurie Halse Anderson portrays high school as a complex social environment that includes both nurturing and harmful elements. Melinda finds that some of her old friends...

Melinda Sordino, the narrator of Laurie Halse Anderson's novel Speak, is a 14-year-old rape survivor who is deeply confused about how to process her trauma and how to protect other women from her...

In the very beginning of the novel, where Melinda talks about her first day at Merriweather High she lists the clans as she sees them: Jocks, country clubbers, idiot savants, cheerleaders, human...

The opening scene and the scene in which Melinda confronts Andy would be two moments in Speak that can be explored through written analysis. In the book's opening scene, Melinda challenges the...

Ah, the friendship that was doomed to fail. Even though Melinda and Heather have very different personalities and goals, they were thrown together (by Heather) at the beginning of the year, due to...

It's Melinda's first day at high school. One thing we already know about her is how incredibly isolated and lonely she is. On her way to school, she was the only one on the bus who sat alone. This...

Perhaps the best way to write this essay on symbolism is to focus on the archetypal aspects of trees and how Laurie Halse Anderson plays on your preconceived ideas about trees' symbolism in...

Melinda's mental issues are beginning to affect her physically - we call this psychosomatic. She describes the physical difficulty she has with speaking in this section of the text- My throat is...