Mr. Raymond

What would you do if someone was being bullied right in front of you? Would you stand by and not do anything, or would you stand up and make a difference for that person? Mr. Raymond is definitely not that kind of person.  He is a bystander not willing to put his opinion out into the open.

Mr. Raymond enters the court with a wine bottle with a paper bag over it. So everyone believed he was drunk, but he revealed to the kids that it was just a bottle of coca-cola. Mr. Raymond tells the children that he pretends to be a drunk to provide the other white people with an explanation for his lifestyle, when, in fact, he simply prefers black people to whites.

He also reveals that he believes that the racist side of Maycomb is the real side. So with that being said, Mr. Raymond is fleeing his believes and does not want to do anything about it. Mr. Raymond does not want to change the town he has simply just given up. Even though he admires Atticus he still doesn't want to change he is lazy and is the most cowardly person I have seen.

Like we do in school. When a student is not being treated fairly we have to stand up to the bully even if he is big or stronger than you, someone has to stand up to him and Mr. Raymond would not be the right person for that job.

Dill

In this creative piece I am describing Boo Radley in Dill's point of view and this would be when Dill, Jem, and Scout would go over to Boo's house

Man! That Boo Radley is a huge nutcase. He probably looked through our windows at night. I want to see him once just to see what he looks like. But I'm a little scared to see what he looks like. After all the kids at school says he's a real creep and he's really ugly, but we found some cool stuff in his tree, so he must be a little nice, right?

Judging

In the book To Kill A Mockingbird an important scene would be when Scout realizes that she can't judge someone until she steps into their shoes or into their life. This makes a huge difference in the book because Scout is finally maturing and one of the major themes of this book is about growing up.

Grown Up

 Authors Note: This piece is a quote analysis for how this affected the book

 “This is the Death Voice, the Voice that means business. When I was a kid, this Voice made me pee my pants. It takes more now. I look up at Mom square in the eye, then rinse my plate and retreat to my room. Deprived of Victim, Mom and Dad holler at each other. I turn up the music and drown out the noise.”

In this quote from the book Speak Melinda is our main character. In this quote Melinda's grades are really low and her mom is taking out the Death Voice. This is the most powerful voice that her mother possesses. Melinda even says that it used to make her pee, but it has no affect to Melinda anymore. She is used to it now and walks right out of the room.

This is a huge part of the book because Melinda is becoming her own person now. Now the "Death Voice" doesn't even affect her. If you took out this passage then you would take out the carelessness of her paying attention to class and to her parents. Right now she is at the breaking point. Right now Melinda must decide to become more social or become a more well rounded student, but her parents must also choose to become more connected to their kid and help Melinda through this unfortunate school year.

Growing

In Laurie Anderson's Speak Melinda is constantly using a tree for her art project, but she cannot convert it into a good feeling. With her inabilaty to grow Melinda has a tough time trying to fit in with the other High Schoolers. With no friends and nobody who cares about her how can she grow?

Melinda starts off as a happy 8th grader with great friends and a happy life, everything starts off romantically and excellent, but then it all flips. Melinda is now at the bottom of the trench. All of her friends have abandoned her and nobody will speak to her. Now she is the girl who crashed the big party, but then she meets Mr. Freeman who lets her express her feelings through art.

Mr. Freeman started off the year, by having everyone pick an object out of a hat that they had to draw in every piece for the rest of the year. When it was Melinda's turn she picked out a tree. Throughout the year Melinda struggled to put her tree into a happy state. She could not put leaves on her tree, without any leaves on a tree it leaves it in a depressing state. With no leaves on her trees it clearly represents her. Melinda is a person who has no leaves, no personality, no friends, and no room to grow.

Melinda's room is supposed to be home to a 5th grader. This is Proof that her trees also represent her. It clearly represents her inability to grow as a person. I believe that Melinda felt dead inside like dried out falling leaves, but remains still clinging on to the branches of a tree, still hanging onto reality.

When you look at how closely a tree represents her it makes sence how messed up her life is. When you look at a dead tree almost no one would like to have it in their yard, so why would someone want some broken down, dried up girl as a friend? If Melinda wants to be more social, and have friends she has to realize where she is in life and grow from there.