Break the Silence: How Violence and Trauma Affect Young Women:

A Multigenre Inquiry Project based on Laurie Halse Andersons Speak

Elizabeth Davis, Wake Forest University davier17@wfu.edu

The Multigenre Inquiry Project

This project explores one critical question through an array of genres that answer the question in
creative, engaging, and meaningful forms. These genres include essays, word clouds, PSAs,
tweets, fliers, found poetry, and audio mashups. The central text that is explored in this project
is Laurie Halse Andersons Speak. Through a multigenre inquiry approach, students pursue
creative options that satisfy their personal interests and skills while maintaining constant
connections to the literature.

Overview of the Novel

Speak follows Melinda Sordino during her freshman year of

high school after she is raped at a summer party and calls the
cops as a result. Her friends shun her after the incident, not
knowing the truth about what actually happened. Moreover, because of her trauma, she refuses
to speak in public and withdraws socially. Yet over the course of the novel, Melinda begins
coping with her trauma through her attempts to speak out via her artwork and testimony.

Essential Question

How do violence and trauma affect young women?

Connections to Other Literature

Other canonical and non-canonical works of literature discussing

young womens traumatic experiences and the power of story in
response to violence include:

Tess of the DUrbervilles by Thomas Hardy

13 Reasons Why by Jay Asher
The Female of the Species by Mindy McGinnis
Porphyrias Lover by Robert Browning
I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou

speakinquiry.weebly.com
 Selected Genres

Strategic Use
In creating this PSA, I chose the most important factor that I
felt kept Melinda from speaking out about her trauma and
wrote it on a piece of duct tape that I placed over my mouth as
the subject of the photograph. Viewers thus see that isolation
is both literally and metaphorically keeping people from
breaking the silence about sexual violence. Additionally, I
chose to place a bar over my eyes to represent the anonymity
of survivors who have been unable to tell their stories due to
societal factors like isolation that hold them back.

Interactions
These tweets illustrate my interpretation of how the
characters would interact if they had modern social
media. This scene is part of the turning point of the novel.
After Melinda finally shares her sexual assault with her
former best friend Rachel, Rachel breaks up with her
boyfriend Andy, Melindas assailant. Instead of Melinda
writing Andy's name on a bathroom stall door under the
heading "Guys to Stay Away From," I imagine Melinda
turning the phrase into a Twitter hashtag that goes viral
among her schoolmates, including Rachel.

Emotions
This word cloud represents terms that either
characterize Melinda or that Melinda uses to
characterize herself over the course of the novel.
The conflicting attitudes and emotions that these
terms represent demonstrate Melinda's internal
conflict as she decides whether to speak up about
her assault or not. The words afraid, silent, growing,
and artist in particular are larger than the others
because they represent the primary identities and
behaviors Melinda assumes to deal with her assault.