Psychologists usually agree that the teenage years are among the most difficult periods in one’s life. Most teens are trying to figure who they are, what they believe, and how they fit into the world around them. Beginning in the late 1970’s, a whole genre of fiction, referred to as coming-of- age literature, emerged and serves, at least for many teens, as believable presentations of young people learning to navigate the difficulties of their lives, often fraught with feelings of rejection, seemingly unresolvable personal turmoil, social problems, school and family issues, etc. Indeed one value of reading is to see and better understand some aspects of ourselves through studying others. The reading of SPEAK, a somewhat controversial book because of its subject matter – rape--, is a worthwhile endeavor in any middle school classroom and offers many valuable life lessons to young teens. Resilience is a key life moral for one to learn that is essential to a successful life. It is one of the main lessons that can be extracted from the novel SPEAK. The definition of resilience is the ability to get back on the right path after a traumatic or scary event that occurs in life. Facets of a resilient person include being able to adapt to change and being able to understand other people. Melinda, a high-school freshman struggling to recapture her once happy life after her rape, recounts her traumatic memories saying, “There is a beast in my gut, I can hear it scraping away at my ribs. Even if I dump the memory, it will stay with me, staining me” (51). As Melinda was still enduring the dreadful, lingering emotions post-rape, she continued to beat up herself with the quote, “ I want to confess everything, to hand over the guilt and ... ... middle of paper ... ...ctly shown that Melinda’s thoughts gear readers to see many traits of people that suffered traumatic events and are able to return to their former personalities. All of the valuable lessons learned during the reading of SPEAK are encompassed by the main idea of resilience, which is the ability to bounce back from a terrifying event. Melinda showed the importance of participating in “flow” activities and maintaining healthy relationships with friends and family. Additionally, Melinda displays the horrors of rape to educate people about the terrible effects of rape and the book makes sure to deter people from engaging in crimes such as rape. The lessons that can be learned from SPEAK are priceless in that they can save lives and help everyone reach their utmost potential, making SPEAK a book that should be carried on the shelves of all middle school classrooms.
It is well known that books read by adolescents are somewhat inappropriate in certain ways such as language and the types of actions done by the characters. Some books consist of drugs, sex, and violence which obviously isn’t very appropriate nor does it consist of positive values. It is easy to see why some books ar...
In Unbroken: A world war 2 story of survival, resilience, and redemption- by Laura Hillenbrand; young Louie Zamperini is a delinquent of Torrance, California. He steals food, runs around like hell and even dreams of hoping on a train and running away for good. However, Pete, his older manages to turn his life around by turning his love of running from the law into a passion for track and field. Zamperini is so fast that he breaks his high school’s mile record, resulting in him attending the olympics in berlin in 1936. His running career however was put on hold when World war 2 broke out, he enlisted in the the Air Corps and becomes a bombardier. During a harrowing battle, the “superman” gets hit numerous times with japanese bullets destroying
The plot of the book, Speak is that Melinda Sordino, a freshman at Merryweather High went to an end of the summer party with some of her friends. Things take a turn for the worst when a senior named Andy Evans sexually assaults her at the party without her friends knowing about it. Melinda is frightened, afraid, and does not know what to do so she calls 911 busting the party, and causing her friends and everyone at that school to hate her, even if they don’t know her.
“I think there are things that we can do to build resilience in each other,” by Sheryl Sandberg a American technology executive. The topic of resilience is also in the book “The Pact”. The two main doctors with the most resilience are Sam and Rameck. How they both have resilience is that they both are able to bounce back from their hard times and become successful. The Pact is a story of three men Sam, George, and Rameck who persevere through life. The nonfiction book, The Pact, by Davis, et al, proves that resilience is made up of social support, altruism, and facing fear, and between the two doctors, Sam and Rameck, one shows more grit and resilience than the other.
The theoretical concept of individual resilience has been long explored. Charles Darwin a famous theorist proclaimed “It is not the biggest, brightest or the best that will survive, but those who adapt the quickest.” Essentially, individuals are able to survive, if they adapt to the world around them. Octavia E. Butler creates this notion in her dystopian novel. In the year of 1993, Octavia E. Butler wrote the novel Parable of the Sower. The story is told through the eyes of the main character, Lauren Olamina. Lauren describes the horrendous and corrupt world around her and notes of the populations response to the violent acts. The year is 2025, when the world is overrun by corruption, greed, criminals, violence, famine, thirst, slavery and division. Through all this, Lauren is able to hold optimism in the world largely due to her background, hyperempathy condition and values. Lauren creates a set of fundamental values, that she wishes she can use to shape the world and create a symbolic home.
Protected by a cocoon of naiveté, Holden Caulfield, the principal character in the novel, The Catcher in the Rye, therapeutically relates his lonely 24 hour stay in downtown New York city, experiencing the "phony" adult world while dealing with the death of his innocent younger brother. Through this well-developed teenage character, JD Salinger, uses simple language and dialogue to outline many of the complex underlying problems haunting adolescents. With a unique beginning and ending, and an original look at our new society, The Catcher in the Rye is understood and appreciated on multiple levels of comprehension. The book provides new insights and a fresh view of the world in which adolescents live.
Adversity affects the lives of many individuals. Through facing adversity people tend to show their true selves. In the novel “Speak” by Laurie Halse-Anderson, the main character Melinda, faces a few different types of adversity. One form of adversity that she faces is that she was sexually assaulted. Another type of adversity that Melinda goes through in this novel is that she loses all her friends and starts to lose her family as well. Throughout my life, I have faced many different types of adversity, one major thing that I have dealt with in my life is depression. Those who face adversity in their life can choose if they want to face it or to ignore it, and the outcome will prove what they chose to do.
Some effort have been made in order to measure the level of resilience. Several model has been generated as a result. In this paper there are only three model that will be discussed. That are PEOPLE model, Cutters model and Torrens model.
“I would like to baptize myself under a new name, a name more like the real me, the one nobody sees” (11). Adolescence brings on many changes in one’s life and is the time when a person is shaped into who they will be forever. Sandra Cisneros shows the experiences one may go through while growing up through this book. A child, especially during their adolescence, is a very moldable person. The situations they go through and their position socially can greatly impact who they become. Cisneros touches on the importance of friends, life at home, and experiences in the real world that can influence a child’s life. In The House On Mango Street, Cisneros uses strong descriptive words, first person point of view, and suspense
Hillenbrand who was born on May 15, 1967, in Fairfax, Virginia, effectively dialogs an intense testimony of redemption. A redemption that through Hillenbrand’s words, but Louis (Louie) Zamperini’s experiences, has praised her with the Time magazine nonfiction book award in 2010 along with the Los Angeles Times Book of the Year Award. Hillenbrand through her usage of anticipation and suspenseful tone explores the ability to have hope as the only coping mechanism of surviving. A coping mechanism, where Louie Zamperini undergoes a human resilience of the human mind, body, and spirit brought by the troubles of mankind and unfortunate consequences of life. If an account of an individual who faces all odds against him and tells his story of finding himself isn’t reason enough to be in our children’s curriculum than what is? Now more than ever, teenagers especially are conflicted in finding themselves in this complex world. A world that continuously faces debates between traditional to modern views, where altering perceptions of what’s right and wrong is slightly bent. Having a book that goes against the inequity of mankind, it would teach kids of today’s and tomorrow’s that sometimes rules have to be broken, in order to be liberated.
In conclusion fourteen year-old Melinda Sordino, finds her lost voice and is no longer a victim of sexual assault but a survivor. Desperate to regain the person she was before her trauma, she did not realize she has been developing into a stronger person. She is learning and growing from experience, which she is now able to speak of.
Now a major motion picture, this novel contained the true story of a man named Louie
This book is trying to show the struggle that many young girls experience and the reasons to why the adolescence years to prove to be such a period of, underachievement, anger, and pain in the lives of girls who can be bright and talented girls. A few of Mary Piphers points that she stresses throughout the book are, girls today are much more distressed, anxious, and uncomfortable than before. The society in which they are coming of age is more dangerous, sexualized, and media saturated, the culture is indeed a girl poisoning one.
lives? Even if they seem to have everything they have ever wanted, not all of them started out like that. They have had to use courage and resilience to overcome difficulties. Some inspiring people that have these demonstrated courage and resilience are Eminem, Jared Padalecki, and Simone Biles.
The fundamentals of this empirical study is to test the hypothesis that optimistic life orientation would result in higher resilience, to see if it can be falsified to give confidence to the hypothesis and whether a causal inference can be drawn between the two variables.