"Out of my Mind" By: Sharon Draper
About the Author
Sharon Draper was born on August 21, 1952 in Cleveland, Ohio, today she is 61 years old living in Cincinatti Ohio. Draper writes a series of books called the Sassy series as well, she came up with this when she was talking to a little girl who was reading books with something missing in them and the girl asked Draper to write books for girls just like her. In addition to her talents in writing, Draper is also a professional educator awarded with the National Teacher of the year and the Ohio teacher of the year. She has visited the White House six times and she spoke at the National Book Festival Gala. She is a very successful woman with amazingly large range of assorted skills. She has no children, but lives with her husband and their golden retriever, Honey.
Click the link to be directed to Sharon Draper's personal web page
Click the link to be directed to Sharon Draper's personal web page
Cerebral Palsy
•Cerebral Palsy is a disorder that effects the movement of a person.
•Symptoms of Cerebral Palsy usually show during infancy or preschool years.
•Cerebral Palsy could make it harder for the person to swallow.
•Some people that have this horrible disorder cannot walk.
•Cerebral Palsy causes the muscles in the eye to be unbalanced
•Symptoms include ataxia which is lack of muscle coordination and spasticity which is stiff muscles and exaggerated reflexes
•Cerebral Palsy causes sometimes serious brain damage that usually occurs before birth
Click the link to read more about Cerebral Palsy
Click the link to read even more about Cerebral Palsy
•Symptoms of Cerebral Palsy usually show during infancy or preschool years.
•Cerebral Palsy could make it harder for the person to swallow.
•Some people that have this horrible disorder cannot walk.
•Cerebral Palsy causes the muscles in the eye to be unbalanced
•Symptoms include ataxia which is lack of muscle coordination and spasticity which is stiff muscles and exaggerated reflexes
•Cerebral Palsy causes sometimes serious brain damage that usually occurs before birth
Click the link to read more about Cerebral Palsy
Click the link to read even more about Cerebral Palsy
Stephen Hawking
Stephen Hawking is a very successful man in spite of his condition, motor neurone disease. He has accomplished many things including becoming a professor and writing a well known book, "A Breif History of Time", to buy his book click the link. It is astonishing how long he has lived with this disease because in 1963 he was diagnosed with motor neurone disease and given two years to live. Today he has more than a dozen honorary degrees which were awarded to him at the CBE in 1982. Hawking has ALS which is also known as Lou Gherig's disease, people diagnosed with this disease are not expected to live five years after their diagnoses, but Stephen Hawking proved them wrong by living for seventy years after being diagnosed at age twenty one.
Click the link to read more about Stephen Hawking
Click the link to read more about Stephen Hawking
Chapter 1-8 Summary :
In chapters one through eight of "Out of my Mind" by Sharon Draper the protagonist of the story is Melody. Melody is a ten, almost eleven year old girl diagnosed with Cerebral Palsy and has difficulty communicating with others. For example, on her wheelchair she has a board with a "big variety of nouns and verbs and adjectives." (p.94-95) Her disability prevents her from not just talking,but from walking as well. However, she has extremely acute hearing. She relies on her parents to do almost everything for her, which means "she will never be able to feed herself or take care of her own personal needs." (p.50) Even though she cannot walk or talk, Melody is unexplainably intelligent. For example, she "learned all the days of the week, months of the year, all the planets, oceans, and continents." (p.96) She would've never accomplished these feats without the help of Mrs. Valencia, a.k.a. Mrs. V. Melody has known Mrs. V ever since she was a baby. Mrs. V is the only person in Melody's life that treats her like any other person. Melody does not just stay home all day, she also goes to school, but she finds it unfair that all the other classes move up and do new things, but the kids in H-5 have to stay in the same class and do the same thing every year with a different teacher. One of the main problems for Melody is that people around her do not understand what she is trying to say. For example, Melody was trying to save her goldfish that had jumped out of the bowl by pouring the fish bowl on the table to give him some more time before her mother got upstairs. When her mother had gotten upstairs it looked as if Melody had dumped the fish out of the bowl to kill him. Years after that tragedy, her dad had gotten her a new pet, a golden retriever puppy named Butterscotch, Melody compares herself to Butterscotch because they have to live the same lifestyle, not being able to tell others what they are thinking.
SPED
SPED stands for Special Education, Special Education is "Specially designed instruction, at no cost to parents, to meet the unique needs of a child with a disability." Special Education is useful because sometimes, children with disabilities need a slower or face to face approach with what they are learning in school. This is understandable because even in regular classes sometimes the teachers go too fast and you cannot understand what they are trying to say because they tell you to wait to ask questions and then class is over before you get the chance to ask your question. We are lucky to have most of our teachers because a lot of teachers in other schools these days do not care anymore, they will just make you read some words on a page and then toss you a worksheet, kids do not learn like that, they need to come into school everyday and know that their teacher is excited to be there. The children of today are tomorrow's leaders, which sound like a scary future if none of them have a valuable education. I believe special education is one of the best ideas this world has ever had because it's hard to get a good education out of learning alone.
Sources: http://www.understandingspecialeducation.com/
http://sped.lausd.net/what-special-education
Click either of the links to learn more about special education
Sources: http://www.understandingspecialeducation.com/
http://sped.lausd.net/what-special-education
Click either of the links to learn more about special education
Chapter 9-18 Summary:
In the Chapters 9-18 of the story "Out of my Mind" by Sharon Draper, Melody is about to have a new baby sister. When baby Penny comes along, Melody's parents are thrilled to know that she does not have any disabilities, “Penny was born perfect and copper-bright, just like her name.” (p. 148) Melody's dad takes a video of every single cute thing that Penny does which annoys Melody sometimes. Melody worries that she may be a burden to her parents and it might be too much for them to take care of Penny and herself. However Melody feels that she has a special connection with her mother that allows her to know what Melody is saying most of the time, she believes her Mom and her "can sometimes talk without words." (p.164) Melody is obviously desperate to talk, she compares herself to Garfield and wishes she had a speech bubble machine. Though she“didn’t get a gadget that makes Garfield-like speech bubbles over” (p.176) her head,she does get a Medi-Talker. Her Medi-Talker allows her to type out what she wants to say and then the machine will say it for her. Melody starts to go to real classes with the other students in the school instead of staying in H-5, but two of the girls, Molly and Claire are mean to Melody because she gets perfect scores on the tests and they think she cheats. Melody never cheats and to prove to them she does not Mrs. V decides to enter Melody into the Whiz Kids group. Whiz Kids is an annual competition with teams from other schools. Melody is practicing everyday to prove she has as just as many, if not more smarts than everyone else.
Dyslexia in the Classroom
Dyslexia is a disability that affects the reading of a person, it makes it hard for the person to recognize certain words or decode a sentence. Dyslexia can cause someone to slow down in their reading improvement. Dyslexia is not due to poor instruction, but is often neurological or genetic. If given the correct encouragement and support, someone could overcome dyslexia. If a student has dyslexia, they could overcome it with support from the teacher, extra practice in study hall, and good friends to help them read everything they come across. Having dyslexia as a student can make it hard to read certain words, but it is different for everyone who has it. A common effect is that letters such as "m", "w", "b", and "d" get switched around. A bright side to this disability is that it can be overcome unlike others. Anyone that has dyslexia should not give up on trying to read, they should try asking for help from friends in family. Nobody should think lowly of someone just because they have dyslexia or any other disability
To learn more about Dyslexia, click one of the links.
To learn more about Dyslexia, click one of the links.
"One Tough Cookie"
Melody
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Both
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Hannah
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For more information on Hannah click the link shown here.
Dynavox
A dynavox is a machine used as a tool for those who are incapable of speaking. This could be a helpful machine because if you cannot speak or write it could become hard to let people know what you really want. In Melody's case, she cannot let people know that she is smarter than they think she is. A problem you may have with the dynavox is that there are probably so many words you can program into it that it gets hard to find the right words to put into your phrase and you may not be capable of typing it out. No machine could completely create the perfect talking experience because sometimes you will type out what you say but people might not understand and they just will not want to take the time to understand what you are trying to say.
For more information on a Dynavox click either of the links shown here.v
For more information on a Dynavox click either of the links shown here.v
Tagxedo
The shape of my tagxedo represents Melody because it is in the shape of a bomb. A bomb is a great symbol for Melody because when you feel like something is driving you crazy you sometimes feel like you are going to explode. As for my word choice, I believe that that was good as well because I wrote the main characters of the book, the words Melody said in the beginning, and words describing Melody or her thoughts. I thought that the best choice of colors would be something with many different colors because when Melody talks about how she describes listening to music she talks about many different colors. Therefore, I believe that the best way to represent Melody was to combine everything that happens to her throughout the book into an amazing final project.
Chapter 19-33 Summary
In chapters nineteen through thirty-three Melody studies as much as she can to made sure she passes the test that will allow her to compete in the Whiz Kids competition.During the test Catherine stands outside and waits for Melody to finish so that they avoid any suspicion of her helping Melody cheat. While announcing the students chosen to compete, Mr. Dimming makes sure to say that Melody had gotten every single answer correct. This proves to her classmates that she is smarter than the eye can see. Melody attends the first competition and her team wins first place, which means they move on to Washington D.C., afterwords they go out for a celebratory dinner which makes Melody upset because she cannot eat by herself and it is difficult for her to get into the restaurant.“Mom gently rolled the back wheels up the edge of the first stone step. Pull. Roll up. Bump. First step. Pull. Roll up. Bump. Second step.
Pull. Roll up. Bump. Third step.
She paused and took another breath. We’d done this before. Many times.
Pull. Roll up. Bump. Fourth step. Pull. Roll up. Bump. Fifth step.” (p.436-437) Melody becomes worried that the other team members would not be happy because the newspaper article was mainly focused on her. She compares herself to pizza because after the news article is written, her team mates do not really congratulate her, they just seem as if their eyes are cold and when the free pizza is announced all the students cheer so Melody thinks,"I guess I'm not as cool as free pizza." (p.456) Melody is extremely excited to be competing in the Washington D.C. competition. Melody's family rushed to the airport just to be told that their flight was cancelled and the rest of the team took an earlier flight without her. No other flights were available, she was devastated. However, after the competition Melody discovered that the team had gotten ninth place because she was not there, she decided to confront them and ask why they left her. While getting into the car to go to school Melody realized that Penny had run out and was hidden in the fog of the morning, in the street. She tried to warn her mother by hitting and screaming, but she did not understand and as she backed out she hit Penny and all was silent. Penny had broken her leg, and come home from the hospital with bumps and bruises. When Melody eventually gets to school, she discovers that Mr. Dimming did tell Rose to call Melody but she thought that Melody could not make it in time so she never made the call. In the end Melody says,“This is going to take a while. So much is stuffed inside my mind. I have lots to say and just one thumb to say it with.” (p.551)
Pull. Roll up. Bump. Third step.
She paused and took another breath. We’d done this before. Many times.
Pull. Roll up. Bump. Fourth step. Pull. Roll up. Bump. Fifth step.” (p.436-437) Melody becomes worried that the other team members would not be happy because the newspaper article was mainly focused on her. She compares herself to pizza because after the news article is written, her team mates do not really congratulate her, they just seem as if their eyes are cold and when the free pizza is announced all the students cheer so Melody thinks,"I guess I'm not as cool as free pizza." (p.456) Melody is extremely excited to be competing in the Washington D.C. competition. Melody's family rushed to the airport just to be told that their flight was cancelled and the rest of the team took an earlier flight without her. No other flights were available, she was devastated. However, after the competition Melody discovered that the team had gotten ninth place because she was not there, she decided to confront them and ask why they left her. While getting into the car to go to school Melody realized that Penny had run out and was hidden in the fog of the morning, in the street. She tried to warn her mother by hitting and screaming, but she did not understand and as she backed out she hit Penny and all was silent. Penny had broken her leg, and come home from the hospital with bumps and bruises. When Melody eventually gets to school, she discovers that Mr. Dimming did tell Rose to call Melody but she thought that Melody could not make it in time so she never made the call. In the end Melody says,“This is going to take a while. So much is stuffed inside my mind. I have lots to say and just one thumb to say it with.” (p.551)
"Radio" Summary
"Radio" is a true story of a boy with an unknown disability, this boy's name is James, but Coach Jones calls him Radio because he enjoys listening to and collecting radios. In the beginning of the story, Radio walks around Hana High School everyday and does not talk very much or cause any problems. Even though he never did more than take a football from them, the football players tied Radio up, locked him in a storage shed, and threw footballs at the side of it. Coach Jones stands up for him by punishing the boys that did this to him and inviting him to practice to help out. Eventually the team warms up to him except for Jonny and a few of his friends who continue to trick him and make him go into the girls locker room. Again, Coach Jones and stands up for Radio knowing who made him do it even though he would not rat out Jonny. Radio is beginning to be seen as a problem for some people, mostly Frank (Jonny's dad) who believes they should do things the way they used to, without Radio. Coach Jones decides that he should resign from his position as head football coach. Before he says this, a few weeks before, Radio's mother dies this is though for everyone because now Radio can be considered 'emotionally unstable'. Radio graduates after his mother's funeral and decides to return every year as an eleventh grader, today Radio is in his fifties and he still runs with the football team at every game, Coach Jones was inducted into the South Carolina Coaches Hall of Fame. They are still best friends.
Melody
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Radio
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