pictures tell a story

She was emo and didn't want to live

She started school and thought it was difficult. She didn't like it.

She would get in trouble by her teachers because she wouldn't participate in anything. 

in school nobody liked her and she was a loaner.

Her report card came to her house and her parents found out that she was failing every class except art.

She remembered when she got rapped by a guy in a party and couldn't concentrate 

Her art teacher would always be there and art helped her forget the bad things.

One of her assignments in art class were to find a way to make a tree fascinating and she liked doing that. it made her concentrate on that

She found a friend, but they never seemed like friends.

The friends she got noticed that she wasn't "normal" and told her she didn't want to be her friend anymore

Her x friend needed for her to help her with something and thats when Malenda spoke up for the fist time and said no

she got a new guy friend and they got along much better

The guy that rapped her came to her to speak with her because she told people that he rapped her and he started beating her but ended up getting beat up by Malenda 

Malenda got into art and that was what kept her distracted

Her art teacher had to leave school to find a better job, and she was going to miss him

and the story continues....

My name is Melinda Sordino and I have just finished my freshman year in high school. I was raped and I survived. My rapist Andy Evans was caught and sent away to prison for a very long time. My parents were very understanding about it all. We all started bonding again like we used to when I was young. For the first time in a long time we all felt like a family. The summer was almost over and I was about to start my sophomore year in high school. One thing was for sure this year was going to be a lot better than my freshman year. I had already called Rachel and we were going to go out together to talk and catch up on what we had missed out. Rachel Bruin and I used to be best friends until the incident split us apart. She ended up going out with my rapist Andy Evans. He was eventually going to get her but I opened my mouth and she confronted him about it. I am so glad that I did that. It eventually led to him coming to me and along with the tennis team we caught him and now he is going to prison for a very long. So I went to hang out with Rachel, we talked a lot like we used to. I had a feeling we were going to be very good friends just like we used to be in middle school. She said “I am so sorry Melinda! I should’ve asked you what had happened.” I accepted her apology. Once school started I took the same old bus ride I had taken last year. This time however I felt happy and excited to be going to school. This year I was not going to be a total outcast. I was not hated by everyone in the school. It was kind of awkward that the whole school knew what had happened but it beat having everyone in school hate your guts. Some people even admired me and called me brave for living what I lived through. There was one person in particular that I wanted to see, that person was David Petrakis. He was the smartest kid in the school but still very likable. I liked him a lot, I admired him a lot, and I thought he was kind of cute. I hoped that I would run into him. In school I saw Heather, she gave me a dirty look. Last year she had used me but I finally stood up for myself and told her no. She got kicked out of the Marthas because of me. Oh well, not my problem. I couldn’t expect everybody in the school to like me anyways. All of my old friends were talking to me again but the damage from last year was still here. They all had grown apart and they all hung out in different groups. It was a bittersweet situation we were in. We would always be friends but we had grown apart. I did not want to join any other group I wanted to go back with my friends. I did not fit in with the foreign students, I did not fit in with the jocks so I decided I would hang out with Ivy and the art students. It was awkward so I decided to leave. Ivy came with me though and so did Rachel who said that the foreign students brought back too many memories. Even Nicole came over to hang out. It was just like old times and nothing could make me happier. Eventually we all had to go to class so we all went our separate ways. I went to my first class which was chemistry and guess who I found there? I found David Petrakis. I went over and sat right next to him and smiled. I said “hello David.” He smiled and said “hi” back. I was so happy to be sitting next to him. He had no idea how much he had helped me out last year. He had helped me out with Mr. Neck, our ninth grade history. Mr. Neck had forced me to give an oral presentation and David Petrakis helped me get out of doing it. Unfortunately I got a bad grade but still. The best advice he gave me is to let my voice come out so that I could defend myself. I eventually did. And so it started, my sophomore year in high school had officially begun. Classes were boring but when aren’t they? Slowly but surely our clan the “Plain Janes” was starting to get back together just like in the good days. David Petrakis or Dave as he told me I could call him kept on talking to each other in chemistry. We were lab buddies so there was a lot of time to talk. He was surprised by how much I would talk now. During my freshman year I never said anything to anyone but I had regained my voice and nothing made me happier. One day me and David were walking home together and all of a sudden he got closer to me. I started feeling nervous. He put one hand on me and I saw he was going to kiss me. I could not control myself and I screamed of fear. I screamed “No!” and ran away home. I was so embarrassed. I just realized how horrible this was. The boy I liked so much was about to give me a kiss and I had messed it all up because of something horrible that had happened to me. I started crying and my mom came into my room. She was surprisingly not at work and she came on over and asked what was wrong. Before I could answer her phone started ringing and I thought oh great so much for having a quality conversation with my mom. She got out her phone but did not answer it. ‘This is a lot more important,” she told me. I told her about what I had done. She told me it was normal for me to be like this because of what had happened to me. She said I had to calm down and apologize to David for what had happened. I was so happy that my mom was actually talking to me and giving me advice. She was actually trying to be a good mom. I felt so happy. I immediately went to the phone and called David and I started to apologize. He said that it was okay and that I did not have to worry about anything at all. He was so nice and understanding to me. I felt so lucky to be his friend. He said that if I wanted to we could hang out at the park on Saturday. So I told him, “sure.” So on Saturday I ran all the way. I gave him a big hug and kissed him and he kissed me back and I said, “ the past is in the past and I have to live in the present. And I want you in my future.” The End.

Laurie Halse Anderson

Anderson was born October 23, 1961, in the northern New York town of Potsdam. When she was a little girl she loved to play with her type writer. Anderson decided in second grade that she wanted to be a writer because of her second grade teacher. The reason why was because her teacher taught her haiku and thought it was easy.  One of her inspirations was her father because he wrote poetry.
For years, Anderson was in love with writing. She then figured out that she would actually get paid for writing, so then decided to become a freelance reporter. In 1996, her first book, Ndito Runs, was published. Anderson wrote many books for children. She had also spent most of her time on rewriting Fever 1793 and then took a break to write a novel named Speak.In 1999, Farrar, Straus and Giroux published one of Anderson’s most famous books, Speak.  Taking a break from Fever was actually a great idea. This book won lots of awards and was a The New York Times best seller. Speak has been translated in 16 languages. Also, Speak was made into a film in 2004.
After Anderson was finished with Speak, she had finally finished writing Fever 1793. Fever 1793 was published in the year 2000. She also started the Wild at Heart series, the twelfth book of which was published in March 2003. Later on, Anderson and her husband had a divorce, but still remain as good friends. Now Laurie is moving back home to live with her new husband and is still looking forward to keep on writing books.

Speak

My name is Melinda Sordino. The book starts in my first day of high school. I sat alone in the bus because I was an outcast. I was an outcast because I called the cops during a party in the summer. Now everybody hated me. When we got to school all the ninth graders got together and we all split into groups. There were the jocks, the artists, the cheerleaders and so on. I belonged to no group; none of my friends wanted to hang out with me anymore. We all split apart, my best friend, Rachel Bruin, hated me. It is here that I met Heather, she is alone too so we start hanging out. The first day of school I am late for class. I meet my English teacher, Ms. Hairwoman. That is not her real name but I called her that because she has funny hair. My other teacher is Mr. Neck. He hated me. During lunch a basketball player accidently got food on me, I wanted to leave but Mr. Neck would not let me leave. I decided not to say anything. Then I had art. It was my favorite class, I had to do something with a tree by the end of the year. And so school started and nobody spoke to me except Heather. My ex best friend Rachel started hanging out with the foreign students. She still did not ever speak to me. One day I found this old janitors closet and I used it as my hiding place. During a pep rally everybody started treating me bad. I wanted to tell them so bad why I had called the cops but I just could not find a way to speak. In the meantime I still could not figure out what to do about my art project. I still would not talk to anyone in the school, not even Heather. Heather wanted us to get involved so bad but I did not want to. Eventually she joins the Marthas and she made me help her get accepted into the group by helping decorate a room. Through all this I kept on seeing “it.” School kept on going. They kept on changing the school mascot name, I kept on hiding in my closet, and class kept on going. One day Mr. Neck starts a debate about immigration, he says his son did not get a job and he is blaming immigrants on this. One kid says maybe his son did not get the job because he might be lazy or the other person was better. Mr. Neck got mad and immediately ended the debate. One of my classmates, David Petrakis gets mad and tells him he can’t end the debate just because it isn’t going his way and calls him a racist. Ever since then I started admiring David Petrakis, he just left. During Thanksgiving my mom tried to cook the family turkey but as usual she failed. The bright side of all of this was that at least I got the bones and I could use them in my art project. After the incident in Mr. Neck’s class David Petrakis started fighting back and recording his lectures. That kid was real smart. During Christmas break I work in my mother’s work. When we went back to school Heather left me because I was always depressed. Eventually I revealed what had happened to me at that party. I had gone to the party with my friends Ivy, Nicole, and Rachel. In the party I met “it;” I met Andy Evans. He was an older boy that had started talking to me at the party. I was excited about it until he started to rape me. I tried to scream but I could not do it. After that I did not know what to do so I called the cops. They came but I got scared and left. I walked home by myself that night. Even in art class I had started to mess up in. Mr. Freeman said that I should read about the mind of the great, Picasso. I started talking more to Mr. Freeman; he said that I should talk more and more. “It” or also know as Andy Evans started to hang out with the foreign students which meant he was hanging out with Rachel Bruin, my ex best friend. Even though she was mean to me and a part of me wanted revenge I still worried about her. Slowly I started to realize that what had happened to me was not my fault. It was not my fault that Andy Evans had raped me. One day I found a lot of tagging in the girl’s rest room; it was all about how horrible Andy Evans was. Slowly I started talking to my friends like in art class I started talking to Ivy again. In history class I was failing so I had to do the extra credit assignment to pass the class. It had to be on influential people at the turn of the century. I decided to do it on the suffragettes. They were the people that got women the right to vote. I did the extra credit assignment but Mr. Neck told me that if I wanted credit for it I would need to give an oral presentation. That is something I did not want to do so I went to David Petrakis for help. He helped me give the presentation but I didn’t say anything so I ended up getting a D on the assignment. David Petrakis said that I should for what I believe in just like the suffragettes did. Eventually Andy Evans and my ex best friend Rachel Bruin start going out. They were both even going to go to prom together. Then one day Heather came back to me looking for help. The Marthas were going to dump and she wanted me to help her out and she said that in return she would help me re decorate my room She started thanking me but I said no, I did not want her to keep on using me. I eventually had to tell Rachel the truth so I told her one day in the library. I told her about how Andy Evans had raped me but she got mad at me and called me a liar. She ends up going to prom with him anyways. On Monday morning I found out that during prom they had started fighting because Andy just could not keep his hands from all of Rachel’s body. I decided to move out of my closet so I did. But while I was cleaning up Andy Evans showed up. He blamed me of being jealous and that’s why I accused him of raping me. He tried to rape me again. We fought and I eventually won. I told him no. Then the lacrosse team arrived and they helped me. Andy Evans was busted. Everybody in school finds out about what had happened and some even called me brave. In the end I stayed late and finished my tree and got an A plus on it. Then I decided to tell my story to Mr. Freeman.
1204 words.

Dear...

April 24, 2011

Dear Ms Vallejo,

                I have just finished reading the book Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson. This book was very interesting to me and it might be to you too. Since this book fascinated me, I believe that it will fascinate you too. The reason why I believe why you would like this book is because it has lots of thrill and always makes you want to know more. If you’re interested in books that have some kind of violence, then this is the perfect book for you to read. Speak is about a girl that gets raped in a party. After that day everybody hated her because she called the police. It changed her life because after that day nobody talked to her and she became a mute. This book was very detailed and made since in the same way. The author, Laurie Halse Anderson, made the book in first person. The main character in the book, Melinda Sordino, described her feelings for everyday on how she felt. The book was interesting because Laurie Anderson made the character very emotional and quite. This meant that Melinda kept every thing to herself and never said anything to anyone. This made the book even more interesting because it would tell the reader more about how Melinda Sordino would be feeling.  The book was a good one because it talked about how she recovered through her being a mute. The book described how Melinda Sordino had lots of problems at school and home. Another reason why I recommend you to read this book is because it had lots of sarcasm and it makes it funny, in a way. One of them is when Melinda makes a list of top 10 lies they tell you in high school:

“1. We are here to help you.
2. You will have enough time to get to your class before] the bell rings.]
3. The dress code will be enforced.
4. No smoking is allowed on school grounds.
5. Our football team will win the championship this year.
6. We expect more of you here.
7. Guidance counselors are always available to listen.
8. Your schedule was created with your needs in mind.
9. Your locker combination is private.
10. These will be the years you look back on fondly.

                This book can also show how the school divides in different groups. This can help you on knowing how other students are feeling and why they are alone. Since you the vice principle then you wouldn’t want any problems in your school so this book describes how Melinda’s classmates treat her and you would know how to fix the student’s problems. Since Melinda got bullied on at her school then you can prevent that from happening in your school. Speak is a very interesting book to read. It is fun, fascinating, and interesting. I recommend you to read this book to help you make your school better and help your students to get good grades and to not be bullied.

506 words

LOOK & LEARN

Historical Text

1. Anne Frank is eleven years old in the year 1940
2. Germany invaded Netherlands
3. On August, first mass execution in Auschwitz
4. United enters World War 2
5. July, the Family Frank go into hiding
6. Anne and Peter's friendship grows
7. Allied victories in North Africa and Italy
8. The occupants of the secret annex are discovered and arrested
9. The family of Franks and Van Dann were sent to consentration camps
10. Allies invade Normandy France
11. Germany surrenders
12. Mr. Frank returns to the Secret Annex.