A Teacher to Remember

"This is the class where you can find your soul, if you dare."  Mr. Freeman told his art students on the first day of art class.  "If you don't learn art now, you will never learn to breathe!"  Mr. Freeman is Melinda's favorite teacher; he pushes them to express their emotions through their art, cares about his students, and give almost everyone an A.  Mr. Freeman, from the book Speak was an character that greatly impacted Melinda from the first time he was mentioned in the book. 

Mr. Freeman teaches and grades his students different than most teachers do, because he has to.  What if you were taking an art class and when you turned in a project, your teacher told you that a ton of details that were wrong, basically telling you that your piece was terrible?  Mr. Freeman had to give most of the students an A for the class because there was no other way of grading them.  The only way you can grade art is by effort.  When Mr. Freeman got in trouble for giving all of the students an A, he took a chisel and sliced his canvas that he had been working on for a while.

Mr. Freeman should express his emotions because he is art teacher and in art, you express your emotions.  Mr. Freeman expressed his emotions in many different ways other than words.  For example, his art always showed his emotions or feelings.  Also his emotions were shown through his actions, like slicing his painting with a chisel because he was upset that his budget had been taken away.  I think that part of the reason Mr. Freeman ruined his painting is because he had painted the school board members in a jail, and it was like they had broken out and taken more away from him.

Meanwhile, Mr. Freeman cares about the problems that his students are having in life.  He wants to help them fix their problems, it probably has something to do with the fact that he wants them to discover themselves and find their soul.  An example of this could be when he offered Melinda a ride to where ever she was going before he knew how close or far he would have to drive.  He wanted to help her.  Another example is at the end of the book when Melinda finishes her project and starts to cry. 

Mr. Freeman notices quickly that Melinda "has been through a lot" and gives Melinda the strength to tell him what happened.

In the novel Speak, Mr. Freeman is an intriguing character.  He teaches his students in a different way.  Most teachers don’t care about their students as much as Mr. Freeman does.  He wants them to find their soul, learn to breathe, and create a masterpiece.

The Homework of Feelings

"I do my homework- choose 5 verbs and conjugate them.

To translate: traducir. I traducir.

To flunk: fracasar. Yo am almost fracarsaring.

To hide: esconder. To escape: escapar.

To forget: olvidar"

Although these words could have been randomly selected, it is fairly obvious that they are not.  First is  to traducir, translate.  Melinda has to translate five verbs. Fracasar, to flunk,  her grades are failing with only an A in art.  Esconder,to hide, Melinda tries to hide the blood, the tears, the pain. Esconder, to escape, Melinda want to escape from her life, escape from her body, escape from the secrets.  Olvidar, to forget,  she desperately wants to forget everything that happened at the party, the reason why no one would talk to her.  These words clearly express Melinda's feelings.

To Take Away the Pain

I predict that in the novel Speak, Melinda will make a few friends.  Then, later in the book, her new friends will remember why they weren't Melinda's friend before and will turn on her.  Poor Melinda will be left with nothing more than what she had in the beginning of the book.

 First, this is a tragedy. It started with a conflict, which was that Melinda had no friends because she had called the cops on them at a party.  I think that her rise to power will be when she makes a few friends other than Heather and more people forgive her for calling the police.  Then I think that she will lose her new friends and that will be the death symbolism. Also, it's realistic because it is possible that a ninth grade girl could call the cops at a party with her friends and then end up with everyone turned against her.

A similar story is the book Finally by Wendy Mass. In that story, there is a girl  named Rory whose parents told her that she could do a lot of things when she turned 12.  When she finally turns 12 and gets to do all of things she wants to, but she realizes that most of them weren't worth it.  The reason they weren't worth it is because she got hurt while doing most of them.  For  example, one of the things she was able to do was get her ears pierced.  She found out that she was allergic to gold and her whole ear was multiplied in size.  This girl just kept getting hurt.  These two books are alike because while Rory was getting hurt on the outside, Melinda was getting hurt on the inside.

Milkweed Comparative Essay

Growling stomachs, loneliness, poverty, and tears gently rolling down the faces of almost everyone, this was how both Misha and Lili lived for a while. They were alone, with no family, no food, and all of this happens to them because of one thing; the fact that they are Jews. Misha fromthe novel Milkweed and Lili, a real survivor of the Holocaust, have many similarities, yet they are very different people.

First of all, these two Jews didn't understand completely what was happening. Misha didn't understand that the ghetto was a bad place when they were first going there, he didn't understand that birthday candles weren't going to burn the cake, nor that the Jackboots weren't his friends. On the other hand, Lili didn't know where she was. She thought that if she was good the nuns would tell her parents and her parents would take her home, she thought that her life of cruelty was normal and that all children lived this way. She didn't understand that none of this was true. As you can see, these two characters didn't understand a lot of what was going on and therefore were very similar, but they can also be considered very different.

As one difference, Lili knows about her family and herself, whereas Misha doesn't. Lili knows that her name is Lili while Misha was given his name by his friend Uri. In addition Lili knows her brother, her mother, and her father. However Misha doesn't know if he has any siblings, or who his parents are and if they're alive. Lili also knew her age and her brother's age while Misha didn't even know his own age. Obviously, Lili knows a lot more about her past than Misha does about his.

Another way that Misha and Lili are different is that Misha's story is fake, while Lili's story is true.  Misha's story seemed miserable, but to think that some of these things actually happened to children like Lili.  How terrible would it be if you knew someone that was happy to eat a piece of moldy bread? It wasn't fair to those poor people who had to suffer just because they were different.

Clearly these two exceptionally different characters also have a lot in common. Living with empty stomachs, without their parents, alone, less than ten years old; these poor kids had a rough time in their lives.

Milkweed Point of View Essay

According to the National Poverty Center, 6.4 million children were poor in 2010. These unfortunate children didn't have an education, food, money, a home, or barely anything else.  These are some of reasons why the book Milkweed is interesting.  This book is about a poor orphan who steals food to survive.  He moves to the ghetto and meet a few friends along the way. Milkweed is told through the eyes of a little boy, about the age of 8,  given the name Misha.

Misha doesn't understand everything that is going on in the book.  He didn't know what a lot of things were. For example, he didn't know what a Jackboot was and he thought they were his friends.  Also he didn't know what Jews or orphans are, nor that when you light birthday candles your not trying to burn the cake, or hardly anything other than how to steal food.  This makes it hard for the reader to interpret because he doesn't know how to read or write and he doesn't know what just about anything is.  For instance, when he ran away with Janina's birthday cake, if it weren't for Uri, neither Misha nor the reader would have known what the cake said and learned Janina's name.

The story told in Misha's point of view was a little confusing because of Misha's lack of knowledge, but if the story were told from Uri's point of view the story would be much different. For one thing you would know about Uri's family and past.  You would also know about Uri's job before Misha found him working at the "blue camel hotel."  Another thing that would be different is that you would know what was going on in Uri's head through all of the book, like why he shot Misha's ear and what he was thinking at that moment.  Also it would be fascinating  to know why Uri did the things he did because we already know why Misha did the things he did. It would also be interesting to see what Uri thought of Misha. Imagine if you brought a kid in off the streets and they kept asking you simple questions or doing things that most people don't do. I think that it would be interesting to read this story from Uri's point of view.

Misha tells the story Milkweed from his point of view.  This book really shows you how terrible some people's lives really are.  There are plenty of children like Misha who are living in poverty now. So the next time you are begging your mom for a candy bar from the grocery store, stop and think about the children living in poverty who are probably begging their parents for something as simple as a glass of clean water.