"Speak" by Laurie Anderson

Speak was written by Laurie Anderson. Speak is a contemporary children's fiction book that tells a story about a girl and her struggle to fight back and stand up for herself. This story is so extraordinary and powerful! The story is all about a high school freshman named Malinda and her slip into the shadows after she calls the cops at a high school party. Angry peers force her into isolation and eventually Malinda quits speaking all together. No one cares about her story and no one reaches out to her but Malinda in her own way reaches out through her artwork. Her character desperately tries to find her voice to fight back against an upper class man who wounded her deeply that night at the party and silenced her, or so he thought. This is a great coming of age story and a story speaking to woman empowerment. 

This story starts off with what seems like a very ordinary girl going through high school. Melinda Sordino is a very shy very quiet girl who seems to be shunned by her peers for an unknown reason. As the reader follows Malinda's life through high school it becomes quickly apparent that something has gone seriously wrong at some point in her life. Her peers have nicked named her squealer and the reader finds out why as they continue the story it seems that for an unknown reason Malinda decided to violate the unspoken rule of teenagers. She called the cops at a house part and got her peers in trouble and the party busted up. Malinda finds a voice for herself in art class. She displays what she is feeling through her art and slowly she looses her voice more and more until she is mute in the story. I do not want to ruin the story for anyone who wants to read it so I am not going to tell you how it ends or what happened to create the rift in Malinda's life. There are no illustrations in Speak. The exception to this is the front cover its a image of a girls face with no mouth and a tree over her which hold great symbolize to the story.

The intended interest level for Speak is for high school students. Which I believe is an appropriate age group to target. The genre of this book is contemporary realistic fiction. Some of the literary devices found in the story Speak are personification, onomonapia, foreshadowing, flashbacks, simile, metaphors, repetition, and the story is a narrative. I think this story would be an excellent teaching aid for teaching children about communication, coming of age, depression, female empowerment, sexuality,and growth , while exposing them to some literary devices.

 Classroom Application:

Critical Thinking Preliminary and Post Reading Questions

• Before teachers begin reading Speak with students they should begin by showing students the cover of the book to get them thinking about what the story might be about.
• Teachers should ask questions about the chosen image to get the students engaged and problem solving. Some question that could be asked include: What do you think this story is going to be about?, Do you think the girl and the tree are important?, Why do you think the girl has no mouth?, What do you think the problem might be in this story?, etc.
• After reading Speak teachers should expand on the reading by asking questions that will get students thinking about the future and what happened in the story. For example: Why do you think it was significant for the girl on the cover to not have a mouth?, What was the significance of the tree in the story? Do you think that Malinda will ever recover from what happened to her?, What person view point was the story told in and give an example to defend your response?, What did you like most about the story, or least? etc. 

Demonstrating Cause and Effect

• Why do you think that Malinda drew the tree for her art project?
• Do you think the story might have been different if Melinda had not called the cops at the party?
• Why do you think Melinda called the cops but never stayed to tell the cops why?
• Why did Malinda create her art room at school?

Character Analysis

• Describe the Malinda? 
• Describe the David? 
• Why do you think David is important to Malinda?

Personal Connections

• Teachers should ask students what things from the story they can relate to their own lives. For example  do they have friends, did their friends ever ignore them or be mean to them, do they have teachers they like, have they ever been to a party, are trees important to them, have they every had a secret, have they ever been afraid, etc.

Sequencing Skills

• Teachers can expand on student sequencing skills by asking students to draw several pictures about their favorite parts of the story and then having them put their pictures in order of how they occurred in the story. 

Summarizing the Story

• The teacher can call on students to help summarizing what happened in the story they just read. The teacher should ask each student to add to the summary before summarizing herself/himself about what happened in the story. 

Theme

• The teacher should ask students to write down what they think the purpose or theme of the story was. It could have been always communicate what you are feeling, over coming depression, female empowerment and speaking out when someone hurts you, memory suppression as a way to survive a horrific incident, growth of self, etc.

Interactive Fun

• I think that the teachers should show the movie Speak in class to give students a visual to relate the story to.