Think of the characters we've met so far in the book. Was Dr. Hugely empathetic toward Melody? What about Melody's teachers? The other students in Melody's school? Her classmates in H-5? Mrs. V?
Thinking of these characters and their character traits, who do you think makes the biggest impact on Melody? Explain your thinking and include specific examples from the story to support your answer.
Empathy is a big part of life that everyone uses once in a while. Empathy is when you put yourself in someone's shoes. In other words, when you are empathizing someone, you are feeling what they are feeling, or imagining what they are going through. For example, no one really empathizes Melody, or wonders what exactly she is going through.
ReplyDeleteEven though you may think that empathy is similar from sympathy, it's not. In fact, empathy is very different from sympathy. They are both different states of emotions. Sympathy is the state of feeling pity for someone or something while empathy is when someone pretends they are that person and they try to experience what they are going through. In addition, being empathetic, to me, is more helpful than sitting around and feeling bad all the time. When you are empathetic, you are up and ready and concentrating on being that person, and sometimes good things can come out of it.
Being empathetic is a very important part of life. It is the key to understanding people and their personality. Maybe if someone is mean and you know that something is happening in their family, you could put yourself in their shoes and say geez. No wonder they are grumpy! And then maybe instead of giving them looks, you could make them a card and say something like, "Hope your day is well!" I bet that would cheer them up. You can't understand people without being empathetic in the world, and nothing can change that. Maybe there is someone out there that you haven't given a chance. So now give them a chance and be EMPATHETIC!!!
So far, people haven't been so empathetic to Melody, especially her teachers. Mr. Hugely and Melody's teachers don't look inside of her and imagine the possibilities, all they do is ASSUME that she is dumb and think that nothing can change. But you can't just assume that Melody is dumb and assume that you have to talk in a baby voice, you have to test her and see what is really inside of this brilliant girl. None of Melody's teachers imagine what she is going through except for good old Mrs. V. Mrs. V knows the potential inside of her and she wants to prove it. She works Melody hard and treats her like a normal girl. Mrs. V strives for the gold inside of Melody and won't give up. Mrs. V is empathetic to Melody and knows what she is going through, but she also knows that Melody can do many more things than telling which color is which and what animal she see's like her other teacher's do. Mrs. V understands Melody and what she wants to do. And if Mrs. V is empathetic towards Melody all the time, what can go wrong? Melody's classmates in room H-5 are sometimes empathetic. For instance, Maria could tell that Melody was sad. She was the classmate who understood people. She could tell that Melody was sad and she asked Melody. Melody was sad because her goldfish had died the day before. Some people who you think don't understand you actually do understand.
In my opinion, Mrs. V makes the biggest impact on Melody. Without Mrs. V, Melody wouldn't know all the vocabulary that she knows now. Mrs. V spends a great amount of time with Melody to improve what she knows. And all that time has payed off. For example, when Melody was younger, Mrs. V put a toy Melody wanted a few inches from her neck. Melody cried and whined but Mrs. V just ignored her. Mrs. V told her to roll over and grab the toy. Melody struggled but finally she did it and realized that with a little bit of extra effort, she can accomplish things she never had before. Another example of Mrs. V impacting Melody is when she made Melody arrange notecards with words into a sentence while lying on the ground. This was a tricky thing to do since Melody couldn't control her grip very well. But overtime, she got used to it and made funny sentences that Mrs. V would laugh at. As you can see, Mrs. V makes a pretty huge impact on Melody's life.
WOW! This response is very long and though out. Great job!
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