Ollie The Fish

Ollie the fish had a very significant role in Melody’s life. Ollie’s story was a big reflection of how Melody feels and how she lives. The fish was supposedly living a good life with adequate conditions to live in, but after a while Ollie decided to jump out of his bowl and try to be free.

I feel that Ollie’s life can also mirror Melody’s life of how she just wants to break free and live her own life. I believe that everyone thinks Melody is doing just fine and is happy with what she has, but in reality she feels the urge to escape this bad dream and have a different life.

When Melody sees Ollie jump out of her fish bowl she really wanted to save him and did her best effort to tell her mother to come and help. Melody gets very depressed when her mother thinks she took him out of the bowl and Ollie dies. Ollie was a very important part of this story in Melody’s life.

Quiz Team

After taking the whiz kid test and getting a perfect score Melody decides to try and enter the quiz team competition. Many of her classmates doubted her and/or thought she was cheating when she did this though. Therefore Melody gets determined to prove all of them wrong.

She studies very hard for the next week and skips her inclusion classes to study as well. Finally, when Melody is ready to take the test, she gets some negative reactions from her peers. Despite these rude comments from her classmates Melody feels that she did well on the test and is happy with herself.

Friendship

Melody’s world changes a lot when the inclusion program is made. She was used to only being with kids like her and now Melody is with everyone. This program allowed her to make a friend and also learn even more about her classmates and education. She gets an aide as well who helps her in all of her classes. There are also some negative effects of this program for Melody though. Some kids don’t like the idea of Melody being in their class and tease/bully her. I think that Melody holds up well though and enjoys this program.

I also think that Melody needed a friend for a long time now. Her aide, Catherine and friend, Rose fill an empty void in Melody’s life. Melody was getting lonely and a friend really helped her out. I believe a true friend is someone who is loyal, nice, and you can have fun with. Friendship is a really important thing to have in your life and I think Melody is realizing that too.

Non-Verbal Communication Reflection

In class we just did a non-verbal activity where we couldn’t talk and had to communicate through a conversation board. My partner Chris and I pretended to be in a situation where I asked him for his homework. We used the boards we just made in order to communicate in this exercise. I think this activity has shown me how many kids like Melody struggle in order to have a conversation with almost anybody.

The phrases and words I chose to use in this situation were mostly basic english words that help make up a sentence. I also tried to use words related to school because I saw the scenarios needed a lot of those words as well. Some basic words I used were: the, and, I, you, it, is, will, a/an, and my. School related words I used were: teacher, students, homework, school, pencil, and paper. If I ever did this activity again I don’t think I would need to change my words too much because almost all of them fit pretty good.

I think that this conversation that we did in class was fun, but it also got difficult at times. I sometimes got stuck and spent a little bit of time to look for my words and think of a way to say them. I felt confused and frustrated at times when I couldn’t just say what I wanted to and could only use my board to speak. This experience was really fun, but I do not think I would want to never be able to speak again because of how hard it must be.

Doing this activity now makes me think of Melody and how she overcomes her struggles a lot differently. I now think that she is living a really hard life and I think very highly of her now. I think that this will change the way I view the story because I can understand a bit more of how she is forced to speak. This experience has greatly influenced how I feel about Melody and people just like her.

Out of my Mind chapters 1-4

I think that the first chapters in this book set the mood for what the reader can expect to happen later on. It shows how Melody has grown and all of her experiences. All of this really captures the reader’s attention and tells them all about Melody’s inner feelings.

I feel that the narrator of the story is Melody. Everything that is in the story seems to come directly out of her mouth and makes me think that she wrote the story. Her “tornado explosions” are also described in a way that only the person who it is happening to can describe them. The way that Melody thinks also lets the reader understand almost every last detail about all of the story.

I think that the first chapters demonstrate that Melody’s life is a very tough struggle and that she puts up with all of it every day very well.