Model Outline

Directions:Malcolm X said, "If you want to know where you’re going, you need to know where you came from." Good advice, and it applies directly to writing an essay. This basic outline format will help you outline just about any type of essay you will be asked to write.

INTRODUCTION

A. Set the Mood

1. Reflective lead on peer pressure—ocean, drowning

2. This is what peer pressure feels like to young teens. The danger is disguised.

3.This is what a young freshman named, Melinda Sordino, felt once she stepped foot

in MerryweatherHigh School in Syracuse, New York.

4.Thesis: The tree shows stages of Melinda’s depression, but she also uses other

archetypes, such as blood representing her guilt, hands representing strength, and

fear and her “safe” place, the closet.

II. BODY OF SUPPORTING PARAGRAPHS

A. Supports Structure of Thesis:

1. Statement: The root of Melinda Sordino’s cause of fear was Andy Evans. He was a senior, he was bigger and stronger while she was only a freshman girl. The archetype hands are used, to show strength.

2. Example:“He cracks his knuckles. His hands are enormous” (Anderson 193).

3. Explanation:When he shows her his knuckles, he is showing her how strong he is, how much bigger he is, compared to her.

4. Example:“I open my mouth to breathe, to scream, and his hand covers it” (Anderson 135).

5. Explanation:That night was the last night Melinda ever spoke. Those hands stopped her from speaking; they brought her depression, pain, memories that keep replaying over and over again.

B. Supports Structure of Thesis:

1. Statement:Melinda’s main problem of why she cannot heal completely is because she is unable to speak for her life, literally and figuratively.

2. Example:“I can’t stop biting my lips. It looks like my mouth belongs to someone else, someone I don’t even know”

3. Explanation:People bite their lips or chew on their lips when they are nervous, scared, and anxious;all these are signs of guilt. Melinda bites her lips, because she is scared; it is a habit of fear.

4. Example: “My throat squeezes shut as if two hands of black finger nails are clamped on my windpipe” (Anderson 28).

5. Explanation:Black usually means death, bad things, and bad people. When that girl asked if Melinda was the one who called the cops everyone turned their heads so fast people would have thought they had gotten whip-lash.

C. Supports Structure of Thesis:

1. Statement:Melinda is trying to grow and get past everything, but she is always reminded of it. The archetype blood represents guilt or life or death, given or taken which is shown in the novel Speak.

2. Example:“The clay streaks the board like dried blood” (Anderson 10).

3. Explanation:If blood means life given or taken then dried means in the past already done, it shows how Melinda keeps being reminded of the night that she called the cops;the night her soul, her life was truly taken away because Andy Evans raped her.

4. Example:“The sharp edge of the flap cuts my tongue. I taste my blood” (Anderson 74).

5. Explanation:Blood again representing guilt and when Melinda tastes the blood, she could taste his mouth on hers, how he was crushing her, not letting her go. It reminds her of that night when she lost everything.

6.Example:“I nibble on a scab on my lower lip” (Anderson 16).

7. Explanation:The scabs are her wounds; her wounds were brought upon her from all her problems which all started with Andy Evans.

D. Supports Structure of Thesis:

1. Statement:Melinda Sordino shows her true feelings through art. The tree that she is assigned to draw shows her stages of depression. The archetype tree, life shows how her soul is dying.

2. Example:“I rummage in the bin again and find a half melted palm tree from a lego set” (Anderson 63).

3. Explanation:Melinda is not completely dead, yet she is neither trying to heal as well.

4. Example:“There is no place for the palm tree I toss that aside” (Anderson 64).

5. Explanation:Melinda makes her case even worse when she does not try. She is almost literally throwing her life away. She is no longer making an effort to try, she is almost giving up all the way.

III. CONCLUSION

A. Close the Mood

1. Once she took her first step she continued on in her journey of finding her soul. She had help from her art project, throughout drawing her tree she realized that she was hurt and needed to heal.

2. “There has been the Confused Period, when I wasn’t sure what the assignment really was. The Spaz Period, when I couldn’t draw a tree to save my life. The dead period, when all my trees looked like they had been through a forest or a blight. I’m getting better. Don’t know what to call this phase yet” (Anderson 151). In my opinion this period is the best one, the healing period.

3. Speak written by Laurie Halse Anderson tells the story of a young girl who was raped and her journey towards healing and how she finally wins.

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