It was a typical day for Chad, going about the halls picking on every vulnerable person they saw, that was until he saw her. It was the first day in years Sophia had worn short sleeves, being scared that people might judge her for being ‘attention seeking’, but today she felt content with herself, brave enough to show people how strong she is. When Chad saw her scars, he realized every single one of these people had their own stories. That was the day Chad Willington had stood up to his friends. “Shut up, she’s just a girl trying to make it in high school and we are making it worst for her. So stop being such a typical jock and start being a good person. Everyone has their story that we don’t know about.” He then ran over towards Sophia, trying to save her from all this madness. “Hey, I’m sorry, I didn’t know that you had enough hard times as it is, I would’ve stood up to them earlier but I never really thought that people had their own stories.”
“Its fine, I’m fine. Don’t care about me please, just get out while you can.”
“Hey, Soph. You’re going to be alright.” That was the first time in years Sophia wanted to get out of this, I mean actually get out of it in a healthy way. Knowing that someone actually cares about her is comforting, it puts some comfort in her miserable life. Not only does Sophia look back to this on a daily basis, but so does Chad. Today during class, while Chad was thinking about this, the teacher had asked for a tutor for Sophia. Being at the top of the class, and wanting to help her so much, Chad volunteered to help. “Hey, Sophia do you want to meet at my house or yours for tutoring?”
“Yours please.” She pleaded because her house was a constant reminder of what is wrong with her, a reminder of how depressed...
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...at made me feel helpless. I never lost hope in her. I love her, she was my best friend and unannounced girlfriend. Every day I looked at her, I would notice something new, I came to love all these thing that no one else seemed to notice. I wish that I could’ve dug her out of this hole before it got too deep. I love you Sophia.” And he got off that stage managing to make her whole family cry as well as himself. He made a vow that day to go everywhere she wanted to and make a mark there. ‘Dear Sophia, I’m never leaving you. I love you. You mean so much, please don’t leave. We can get married and have 2 kids. Isn’t that what you want? I just want you to be happy, because where ever you are is where I’m most happy.’ This was the first thing he ever wrote to her, it was the day after he stood up for her so he put it into her coffin… Love really can happen at first sight.
Moments in life make up a person as scenes make up a movie. Celie had to suffer all her life. She gave up on some of the joys that family could have brought. She was abused and beaten because of the way she looked. No one looked underneath to see what she had to offer. Her sister knew, but she was taken away and Shug also learned, but she never stayed. It wasn’t until Celie understood her worth that it made a difference. Once, Celie knew she could do anything she wanted, that was when she made a difference. She chose a better life and became something. She became something without the help of the people that hated her. When we fight, fight for our rights and freedoms that is when we can become something that others envy. We have to love ourselves before someone can truly love us.
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.
In the beginning of the book Melinda was very shy and self conscious. Since everyone thought she called the police they didn’t want to be friends with her so she was going into high school with no friends." I have entered high school with the wrong hair , wrong clothes , the wrong attitude . And I don't have anyone to sit with . I am an Outcast.” (4 Anderson) This made her very shy and she just minded her own business. On the first day of school Melinda was getting on the bus and she didn’t know where to sit. She thought if she sat in the back she would get made fun of but if she sat in the front she would look like a little kid. She chose the front because she doesn’t want to walk down the bus aisle past her friends because they were mad at her. She was being shy and didn’t want to make up with her friends. This also happens at lunch because her old friends didn’t want to sit with her so she was going to sit with another new girl Heather but she didn't get the chance to. She thought, “I am Outcast” (Anderson 4). She didn’t want people to judge her on where she sat so she was debating. At lunch she was walking back from buying her lunch and a ...
Cassie and her brother, Little Man, got a whipping because they were standing up for what they knew was right. “Sitting so close to the desk, I could see that the covers of the books, a motley read, were badly worn and that the gray edges of the pages had been marred by pencils, crayons, and ink.” (Taylor, 21) Cassie knew the books were very old books from the white schools. Cassie and her brother saw what the whites called them and they got mad about it, so the teacher, Miss. Crocker, gave them both a whippings. “The switch landed hard on Little Man’s upturned bottom. Cassie knew she would get in trouble for helping him, but she helped him anyway. “Everything. I poured out everything. About T.J.’s breaking into the mercantile with the Simses, about his coming in the night fleeing the Simses, about the coming of the night men and what they had done to the Averys. About Mr. Jamison and the threat of the men to come to the house to get him and Mr. Morrison.” (Taylor, 258) Cassie knew she would get in trouble for sneaking out to go help T.J. but she had to tell her dad what happened so T.J. wouldn’t die. “What happened to T.J. in the night I did not understand, but I knew that it would not pass. And I cried for those things which had happened in the night and would not pass. I cried for those things which had happened in the night and would not pass. I cried for T.J. For T.J. and the land.” (Taylor, 276) Cassie knew T.J. would die, but she knew she helped as much as she could. She knew she was
Experiencing a traumatic event can be emotionally challenging; however, many people have shown significant psychological growth and positive psychological change as a result. Speak illustrates the story of a girl who grows stronger as she overcomes her traumatic life event. It demonstrates that by facing her trauma she is able to deal with difficult memories and emotions. As she comes to the realization that she is not responsible for her victimization, she is able to heal and recover. At first, she is negatively affected, but as she grows, she finds the courage to speak up for herself. In Speak written by Laurie Halse Anderson, Melinda’s personal growth is positively impacted by overcoming her depression, isolation,
Melinda had several times through the year where if she had asked for help, her life would have drastically improved. An instant of such is near the beginning of the school year, where Melinda notices her friend Rachel in the bathroom. On page 21 the text reads, “I want to grab her by the neck and shake her and scream at her to stop treating me like dirt. She didn't even bother to find out the truth—what kind of friend is that?” No matter the attitude of Rachel, Melinda did not bother to communicate with Rachel, which prevented her from learning about what actually happened. If Melinda had spoken, she would have gained necessary emotional help from her friend, and it would have infinitely improved her condition during her freshman year. Melinda did not understand the power of words, until she could not speak. Luckily, after a few negative incidents throughout her freshman year, Melinda finds the courage to speak out and ask others if they can relate to her traumatic occurrence, her rape at the party. She scribbles a note in the bathroom stall, writing, “Guys to Stay Away From”, then proceeded to write Andy Evans name. And though this method was anonymous, it helped her find those that also stayed silent. “There's more. Different pens, different handwriting, conversations between some writers, arrows to longer paragraphs. It's better than taking out a billboard. I feel
In Laurie Halse Anderson’s short novel Speak, a teenage girl named Melinda Sordino makes an attempt to face the trauma of being assaulted, while, at the same time, facing the rough transition into high school. Melinda’s friend Ivy is an artistic and unconventional fellow freshman who helped our protagonist most to find her voice.
For many, high school can be an extremely draining and difficult time. Many teens are still confused about who they are and what they are trying to accomplish. These mixed emotions are seen through the eyes of freshman Melinda Sordino in Laurie Halse Anderson’s novel, Speak. Anderson uses a variety of different conflicts to symbolize Melinda’s journey throughout the novel from a shy, depressed girl to a blossoming teenager who is unafraid to speak for what she believes in. During the summer before her freshman year, Melinda is raped at a party by a senior (Andy Evans), drastically changing her life for the worse. She loses all her friends when she calls the authorities to the rape scene, since
Imagine you just moved far away, you have no friends, you are afraid to go near to your sibling, and you get made fun of all the time because of your looks. Can you imagine this yet? Well, this isn’t the worst of it. Imagine getting kicked off your sports team because your coach thought you were “handicap.” Imagine your brother is a murderer. Imagine the victim of this murder was your friend. It’s hard to imagine such things, but this is the hard reality that Tangerine’s protagonist Paul Fisher had to live through.
"Some of their writings are heartbreaking as they wrestle with problems of identification, adolescence, communication, rape, inner-city violence and drugs. They desperately seek role models, and whether I like it or not, they look to me to guide them."
In conclusion, both Greene and Lorde discuss how disappointments as child have had positive affects on his/her lives as adults. Greene’s essay applied to me more than Lorde’s because I have never been judged by my appearance. I can’t relate to the fact of being cut from a team, but I can relate to the fact being successful with hard work.
I could see the fear in her eye, and could feel the pain in her trembling hands. I could sense her discomfort when she talked about the night. I had never known, and never would have guessed, that something happened to her at a party with kids I knew from my school. She told me first. She only told me. She spoke to me about how she can not be in a room with a stranger, or how she feels that part of her died that night. She explained that hugs didn’t feel good anymore, they felt intrusive. She explained that she won’t stay in a room with a male teacher if the other students leave. Every part of her life, she explained, has been changed. She wasn’t the same girl anymore, and she blamed herself for it. Even contemplating suicide, like many victims often do, seemed better than living with the memories. She was too afraid to talk to her parents, because she had drank a little the night of the incident; and too afraid to tell her friends, because they thought that the guy was cool. She didn’t trust anyone anymore, not even her old best guy friends. She had known him; they had been friends in junior high. She knew him…
Brittany walks into her room and slumps on her bed. Although she knows tears should be running down her cheeks, her face is dry. She clutches the envelope that she received in the mail today with the results of her blood test. She just found out she is HIV positive four weeks after she was hit with the news that she was pregnant. If her brother was here, he could help, but he died in a car accident four months ago. "What am I going to do? What are my parents going to say? Who is the father of this baby?" Without a job or high school education she feels like she has not hope. She is trapped. "Maybe I should just end it all right now. This is too much for me…"
...atrice tells him ‘I love you with so much of my heart that none is left to protest’. This is a wonderful contrast to all the deception it has taken to bring them together with a relationship that will not fail.
She seemed like a whole new girl. “Bullying At School” mentions that a simple hello or smile can change a person’s life, and in this moment, I felt the change in her attitude, personality, and overall presence (2). It seemed that the simplest acts I did seemed to make a world of difference to her. Graduation day, 2015, I sat in my chair watching all of my friends prepare to walk the stage. As the ceremony began, I saw the girl from that day climb the stairs to the stage and begin to speak. She was our Valedictorian. She began, “Dear fellow graduates. I can’t call you my friends because most of you do not even know I exist. My name is Sam Carter. I am your below average student that didn’t fit in like the rest of you. I had one friend and you know who you are. I was gratefully introduced to a friend earlier this year in a crucial time of my life. Everything was piling up and I was being bullied at school. She came into my life at just the perfect time and saved me. The day she helped me pick up my books and stood up for me in the hallway before class was the day that I was going home to end it. My life meant nothing to anyone. I had my goodbye letter written out, the rope in my room, and had my goodbyes said and that day, she showed me that I wasn’t alone and that someone cared for me. The simple things you did for me changed my view on this world. You saved my life. As I