SPEAK BY LAURIE HALSE ANDERSON: ONLINE STUDY GUIDE / PLOT NOTES

CHAPTER 3 - Spotlight

Summary

In this section of First Marking Period, Melinda finally finds her locker and then heads for the cafeteria. She observes that you never bring a lunch the first day of high school, because you never know what the acceptable fashion will be. She doesn’t know how to order anything, so she just allows the “drones” to fill a tray with the day’s general menu and looks for a place to sit down. She sees those girls who used to be her friends, but they just look away. She is behind a basketball player who finds the rest of his team. One of his friends throws some mashed potatoes and gravy at him, but they hit Melinda instead. She thinks she will be forever known as the “girl who got nailed by mashed potatoes the first day.” The whole cafeteria explodes in laughter and Melinda dumps her tray and bolts for the door.

As she runs for the door, Melinda is stopped by Mr. Neck who has cafeteria duty. He refuses to allow her to leave and Melinda decides it’s easier to just stay silent, because nobody wants to hear what you have to say. He notes in his book that he thought she was trouble the first time he saw her. He has taught for 24 years and believes he can tell what’s going on in a kid’s head just by looking in his eyes. She earns another demerit.

Notes

The first day continues to be a nightmare for Melinda. She is forced into the “spotlight” when all she wants is to somehow get through the agony of being Outcast without attracting too much attention. The humiliation of being snubbed by her friends, being hit with mashed potatoes and gravy, and being given yet another demerit from Mr. Neck makes the “spotlight” unbearable. It is interesting to note, however, that in spite of the fact that she knows how her friends feel about her, she is still anxious, actually determined in some ways, to fit in.

CHAPTER 4 - Sanctuary

Summary

After lunch, Melinda enters her art class and she labels it the dream that follows the nightmare. This classroom is filled with windows to attract any sunlight that might appear in Syracuse, a city that is noted for its lack of sunlight. There are paint splotches everywhere and a radio is playing her favorite station. She names her teacher Mr. Freeman, perhaps because, as we will learn, he snubs his nose at the “establishment.” He is angry, because the school board has denied him any supplies for the year. She describes him as ugly, with a big grasshopper body, but he smiles as the students walk into the room and see him working on a pottery wheel. Melinda sees Ivy, one of her friends from the year before, and wills her to look at her, but she won’t.

The first thing Mr. Freeman writes on the board is the word SOUL and tells the class, “This is where you can find your soul, if you dare. Where you can touch that part of you that you never dared look at before.” She thinks that he has to know from their reactions to this that they think he is weird. He also tells them that if they don’t learn art now, they will never learn to breathe.

Mr. Freeman then shows them a huge globe that is missing half a hemisphere and asks them what they think it is. When they are too literal in their answers, he sighs and says, “No imagination.” He tries to make them see the possibilities for creation from an old broken globe, but he knows he will need the entire year to accomplish this. He has each student draw a piece of paper from the globe on which is written the name of a common object. He tells them they will spend the rest of the year turning their object into a piece of art. Melinda chooses a tree and tries to choose a different piece of paper. Mr. Freeman tells her she can’t choose again, because she’s already chosen her destiny. She questions whether he can conduct a class like this, since it sounds like too much fun. They begin with clay and the pottery wheel.

Notes

The fact that Melinda has found something to like on this agonizing day is crucial to understanding how she resolves her despair through the year. She has found a teacher who really cares what they learn and sincerely wants them to discover their own destinies. That is why he is Mr. Freeman - he doesn’t allow the rules and the structure of school to make him less than a great instructor. He will be her favorite throughout the story.

There are also some other ideas presented here which reflect Melinda herself: she is excited by the windows as if she would walk the ends of the earth for just a little sunlight in her life; he challenges the class, including Melinda, to find that part of their souls in places inside them which they have never touched before; and Mr. Freeman points out to Melinda that choosing a tree as her object is her destiny. In these three examples, we are prepared for the journey Melinda is going to take to escape her despair. Like the title of the section, art will become a sanctuary, a safe haven, where she can begin to look within herself.

Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson: Free BookNotes Summary

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