6. Describe Mrs. V. What role does she play in Melody’s development? Why is she a necessary addition to Melody’s life?
Mrs. V is a former nurse and Melody’s neighbor. She used to work with Melody’s mother in the hospital. She watches over Melody while her parents are away and when she is out of school. Aside from Melody’s father and mother, Mrs. V is among the few people who understand Melody’s potential and intelligence. She teaches Melody when aspects of life given that she was tired of seeing her completely dependent on her parents. She teaches her how to roll over whenever she falls off her wheelchair. This would let Melody handle herself whenever she falls off and nobody is around to help her up. Mr. V also teaches her how to read.
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Mrs. V can be described as a kind and tough woman. She pushes Melody to do her best. The dissatisfaction that comes with letting a three-year-old rely on her parents leads her to teach Melody how to crawl so that she can reach things that are far when nobody is around . Her kindness is expressed when she decides to take care of Melody when her parents are not around, a thing most people cannot do especially when the child has such kind of disability.
In a way, Mrs. V gives Melody a sense of language. This is because she restructures her communication board making it possible to fit more words. She is an addition to Melody’s life given that her caring nature pushes her express a lot of kindness to her and she even goes ahead to ask Melody’s parents to look for a Medi-Talker to help her out. Having nurtured her academically. Mrs. V tries to convince Melody to work hard in her studies and asks her to join the Whiz kid’s team. This implies that Mrs. V believes that Melody can be anything she wants to be despite her disability. She is, therefore, a blessing to Melody since she gives hope to her and pushes her to do her best.
9. Trace the story of one of the following characters. Imagine you are a reporter doing a story on one of their lives. Write everything you can as well as whatever you can infer about the character in order to write your magazine article.
Rose
Rose is a general education student. She is in fifth-grade at Melody’s elementary school. She is an excellent and organized student. Amongst all the students in the integrated class, Rose happens to be the first person to accept Melody. When Melody joins the inclusive class, Rose smiles at her and is compassionate enough to allow her to sit next to her. Melody trusts, loves and becomes free with Rose because she finds her amazing, kind and understanding.
Rose shows kindness to Melody by accepting to be her partner in music while the rest of the students were avoiding her due to her disability. Moreover, during lunch hours, she spends time with Melody, shares secrets with her, and even tries to say “hi” even though she knows Melody does not understand. Generally, she tries to make Melody feel comfortable around her unlike the rest of the students who avoid her.
Although Rose treats Melody better than the rest of the students, she also shows some disappointing behaviors and she gets persuaded by her friends to neglect Melody. She agrees to attend the aquarium as Melody’s guest but she gets embarrassed when people see her with Melody. Moreover, the fact that she gets shocked when Melody qualifies to join the Whiz Kids team implies as much as she walked with her, she did not believe that Melody is a smart girl with potential. Melody Feel betrayed when the rest of the team takes an early flight to Washington Dc and leave her behind yet she had also worked hard to ensure the team wins. She is disappointed because Rose does not call her to inform her about the change of plans but she leaves her behind. As much not all times she does the right things as Melody’s friend, she is generally a good friend who exhibits kindness to Melody.
10. You are a reporter at one of the following scenes. Write the story for your newspaper.
A student with disabilities makes the Quiz team.
Melody Brooks is an eleven-year-old girl who is suffering from a condition known as cerebral palsy. This condition has gotten her body totally stiff and uncooperative. Despite her disability, her parents still take her to school. It is in her fifth grade that her life takes a complete change when the school introduces the inclusion program. This program allows students who have disabilities or in other words, the special education children to join the rest of the children or as she says it, to join the “normal students”.
Melody greatly enjoys the classes and she even goes ahead to find an aide that helps her with classes. However, most students view her as a stupid girl, which results in discomfort and makes her pity herself and feel discriminated. The case gets worse when Melody realizes that even the teacher thinks that she cannot participate. Melody sits for the exam so that she can prove them wrong and to their surprise, she manages to get a perfect score in the test exam of a trivia completion.
Melody does not stop at that for she still takes part in the qualifying exam and once more she makes it to the team. She does her best to help the team, which makes them win at the qualifying competition and in turn wins them a trip to Washington Dc to go patriciate in the national competition. Melody’s story serves to encourage the people with disabilities not to look down upon themselves for they have within them a spirit to win just like everyone else. Just like Melody, instead of focusing on what people think, be optimistic and make things happen.
Summary of The reason I jump by Naoki Higashida.
The book The Reason I Jump is written by a thirteen-year-old boy who is passionate about expressing himself to the world on his experiences as a victim of autism. He uses several questions which by answering them, he gives his insights and how the isolation affects him. This book is a crucial resource for any individual who seeks to comprehend those children who have an autism spectrum. The boy literally struggles with verbal communication, hence he decides to type the ideas onto a computer, whereby it would be simpler for somebody to read and understand as well as give people a unique look into the mind of people with autism.
In this book, Naoki says that his words disappear when he wants to converse with people despite the fact that he can sing and read aloud. Throughout the book, he articulates the kind of problems people with autism go through right from their inability to control some behaviors to their incapability to effectively communicate despite their urge to do so. In his explanations, Naoki says that he is prone to forget things so quickly that it forces him to go through them over and over so as he can remember them.
One of the biggest challenges he faces is difficult to find appropriate words he needs to use in a given situation along with violent, and uncontrollable reactions he often gives even when the slightest things are incorrect. Naoki brings out more aspects of autism which includes the reasons why they repeatedly eat the same foods, wear the same outfits, and a strange attraction to water and nature. He, therefore, pleads for patience and understanding considering that he is aware of their annoying behavior.
Naoki concludes his book with the story “I am Right Here”. Here, Shun, a young boy is hit by a car. The boy dies and is taken to heaven. Shun is frustrated that he is not around to help the parents grief. This is exactly the picture of what people with autism face given that they cannot communicate effectively. He, therefore, pleads for patience and understanding considering that he is aware of their annoying behavior.
Compare and contrast the book Out of My Mind and The Reason I Jump
Both The Reason I Jump and Out of My Mind are written by teenagers who have a common feature which is a disability. Melody, an eleven-year-old child is suffering from cerebral palsy. This condition has made her body stiff and she can also not speak. Despite the misfortune, Melody is very intelligent and she desires to communicate with people just like everybody else. It is unfortunate that people perceive her like a retarded child given that she cannot express herself. She, therefore, writes the book Out of My Mind so can express herself and tell everybody about her experiences as a disabled kid and her journey towards developing and embracing herself. On the other side, the author of the book The Reason I Jump is a thirteen-year-old boy who is struggling with autism. He gives an impressing eye-look into the experiences of the disabled kids and particularly his own experiences. Naoki’s main challenge is effective communication and in his book, he explains the aspect of communication with compassion.
Given that both authors are disabled, they face a lot of challenges. Naoki gives readers a picture of how disheartening baby talk can be for him to listen to. In many cases, people view the disabled as people who have no understanding of language forgetting that the people only language and speech impaired but their understanding is just okay. This reasoning annoys him so in his book he says, “True compassion is not about bruising the other person’s self-respect”. For him to share his fictions with the society, his experiences, and express his basic needs to his family and caretakers, he painstakingly spells out the words on alphabet grids while others transcribe. At some point, he feels completely overwhelmed by everything because independent communication is hard to learn but his determination pushes him. On the other side, Melody faces challenges. She cannot independently move and that’s where Mrs. V comes in. She teaches her how to roll when she falls off her wheelchair and to crawl and reach something when people are not around. She also teaches her how to memorize vocabularies and read new words. At the fifth grade she works hard and joins a team against everybody’s expectations and she leads them to succeed despite the fact that they leave her home when catching a flight to Washington DC. From both writers, the spirit of willingness and determination to express themselves makes them conquer the odds.
The main theme in the book Out of My Mind is that everybody deserves to loved, treated well, and respected for who they are. In the book, Melody has built hope that society will change and embrace kind treatment instead of viewing her as stupid or retarded. She yearns for normal friendship with the people who surround her. She gets over disappointments like being excluded from the trip to Washington Dc and she maintains being herself by staying positive despite her condition. In his book, Naoki’s main theme is disability. He gives a perfect picture of the world people with autism. Naoki provides an understanding of a wide range of issues and this can help the rest to understand where the problem is and how to handle them. In spite of inappropriate verbal communication, the writer employs his ability to write gracefully and open both his heart and mind to give forthright and insightful answers even to most difficult questions such as why such people tend to speak loudly as well as avoiding eye contact with people. In this book, he speaks not for himself but also for everybody who has such disability and this enables the readers to comprehend some complexities the may be facing.
The plot of the book Out of My Mind contains introductions to the characters and an outstanding backstory. The idea of Melody succeeding makes the plot splendid. For example, Melody wins during the tests for the Whiz Kid team and this amazes everyone. Similarly, the plot of the book The Reason I jump is great. The author explains his experiences and even complains about the condition but he stays positive and even teaches parents how to handle kids with such conditions. He also completes the book with a story about a boy who dies and goes to heaven. This breaks the monotony and makes the book interesting.
The mood in the book Out of My Mind is gloomy and crushed because the author feels sad that she cannot walk, play around, effectively communicate, and even do some chores like the rest. The style used in this book is advocating and didactic. The style shows up when Draper uses terms and language in current special education and tries to give information on more types of disabilities by describing some of Melody’s classmates. She uses a calm tone that is at the same time stressful given that sometimes melody gets stressed when she faces discrimination but sometimes she gets excited. The tone in the book The Reason I Jump is depressing because the writer is sad about not being able to express himself to his family and caretakers. He also uses an optimistic tone given that he understands himself and no matter the kind of treatment they face, he does not give up. His book is like a guide to parents with kids who have the same problem and he teaches parents how to handle them using himself as an example.