The last reading response. The theme of Out of My Mind is “Don’t Judge a book by it’s cover” this is the theme because in the book the Melody says “They think my brain is messed up like the rest of me” this makes me believe just because the students in the book think she can’t do anything physically that she doesn’t have thoughts mentally. This shows the theme because she shows them that she can do just as much as them and even more.
In this chapter we heard about a new device called Medi-Talker. Melody’s computer changes her life by her finally being able to talk. Her outlook on life has changed because now she has the ability to show people how she feels. Her potential has changed because now she can show people her grades, what she needs to work on, what she is good at, and take more tests. She named her new talking device Elvira because that is her favorite song.
This activity was about spending a few minutes in Melody’s shoes. In this activity we took scenarios and made a talking bored like Melody has in the book. This activities purpose was to show us just how difficult it is to be in her situation.
On my communication bored I chose a few phrases that went with my scenario like Where is the bathroom?, When is math?, Etc. I chose these because they sounded like the most helpful and useful. If i had the opportunity to do this activity again I would change my board and add more phrases. I would add more phrases because I had to spell out a lot of words and there we’re a few things I forgot.
Engaging in a non-verbal activity is always hard because that’s how i’ve learned to communicate throughout the years so when I can’t it’s difficult to figure out how to communicate. It was difficult and frustrating to me because I didn’t always have the right words so I had to figure out where they we’re on the board.
This activity has changed the way I see Melody because now I know just how hard it is to work with the communication board I can’t imagine having a disability as well and not being able to say what you mean. While using the communication board I felt small and different and I felt helpless I think I felt this way because it was so hard to use it in my eyes because usually we can just say our words and not have to find them on a board or find the right phrase or change is up every time you find a new word.
Today we read chapters 6-7, in these chapters we learned about two characters very different Mrs. V and Mrs. Billups. Mrs. V is a very caring loving person who helps Melody learn to crawl and flip over. She is very understanding of the disability and loves to help their family. She has a very colorful personality and worked as a nurse with Melody’s mom before retiring. I think she plays an important role in Melody’s life because she shows her how to move even with the disability she has and shows her that even though it’s hard to move around and speak there is always another way. This is a necessary addition to Melody’s life because it truly shows just how smart and determined Melody is.
While reading chapters four through five we learned about her experience at school. Melody’s experience at school is very interesting she doesn’t like her classroom because she thinks it is babyish. Melody likes her teacher she gets a new one every year she also really like her aids and says “The aids deserve medals.”. Melody says that her curriculum is too easy and that it never changes. In my elementary school experience I got new curriculum every year and a new classroom I think that there are these differences because people think that people with disabilities are not smart or can’t retain information. Some similarities are we switch teachers and we celebrate holidays I think we have these similarities because they are things that are easier to handle and cope with for teachers and students.
Today was our first day reading Out of My Mind. While I was reading the first three chapters something that caught my attention was when Melody says “I can’t talk. I can’t walk. I can’t feed myself or take myself to the bathroom. Big bummer.” this caught my attention because there is a lot of information in that sentence. The sentence tells me about her life and how she lives. I think this will play an important role in the story by her actions what she can do and what she does eventually.
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