Charting Melinda's Escape

Students contributed responses from their School Life / Home Life analysis document, so that I could record them on a T-Chart on the whiteboard. Students backed up their responses by sharing the quotes from the book that had informed them.

After some sharing, my board looked like this:

Excellent ideas courtesy of 3rd period.

We did this to understand Melinda better as a character, particularly to understand her actions. Using these ideas, we were able to trace Melinda's Path of Escape to a rather grim conclusion:

Melinda has a negative school life, so...

She escapes school to go home. But that's not much better, so...

She escapes her home by fleeing to her room. But it doesn't even feel like her room, so...

She escapes her room by crawling into bed, and pulling the covers over her head. But she can still see her reflection in a mirror, so...

She turns the mirror around, and puts it in the back of her closet, and gets back into bed.

So what is Melinda really trying to get away from?

She's running from HERSELF.

The problem is, this might look like an answer, but it only invites more questions:

• Why is she trying to escape from herself?
• No one can really get away from themselves. But what might this impulse drive someone to do? To themselves, and others?

HW:

• Bring Speak to class
• Study for a Vocab Pop Quiz (Melinda's 1st Day vocab)