Notifications
Clear all
Perspective Discussion #3
4
Posts
4
Users
0
Reactions
107
Views
Topic starter
29/03/2026 7:28 pm
In the short story "From Scratch" by Susie Castellano, Priya moved from India and she did not have any friends. She tried American food but found out that there was people like her at school from other countries and she just need to stop judging.
The book Out of Nowhere is about a high schooler named Tom who lives in a small town in Maine. He starts to change when many Somali immigrants move to his town and play soccer and join the soccer team. In the beginning Tom doesn't understand them and has a negative attitude about them. But then he has to do community service and his attitude starts to change as he starts to get to know one of the Somali families. He starts to understand how unfairly they are treated and changes his attitude about them.
Both stories are similar because they both have to deal with immigrants and people moving from different countries and judging people at first glance without getting to know them. One example is “Priya hadn’t worn her sparkling bangles since they’d stepped off the plane in Dallas, Texas, five weeks ago.”also “in Islam it say woman must not show hair,or the skin, to mean outside family. Woman must not touch man outside family.”(pg295)
How has your character changed through out your book? Have they changed their opinion about other characters' in the book? Discuss how they first judged someone and then what happened to make them think differently about them later on.
03/04/2026 2:50 pm
My character, Sol, started the book by wanting to save everyone. She starts changing throughout the book, because she realizes she can talk and be heard. Her friend, Bruno, gets into a fight in the lunch line, meaning he could get expelled. She gets to go up in front of the school board and make a case for him, she was nervous to speak, but it turned out to not be so bad. “All the fears I thought I would feel in this exact moment are completely gone. After being so uncertain, so anxious about talking in front of the school board, it has turned out shockingly easy to show up today, to use my voice, to step into the shoes of Sol.” (Aleman 308). She goes from being this shy person, to this activist in a way. She solely judged herself, so she could know how she was gonna be judged before others could show it.
06/04/2026 10:40 am
thats really awesome do you think that she feels judged because shes not like everyone else
10/04/2026 11:18 am
The book, The Poet X, by Elizabeth Acevedo, is about a young Dominican girl named Xiomara, (X for short) making her way through high school and learning the feeling of freedom she gets through poetry. She starts out, always on edge, having to defend herself or her brother from harassment. I think the most obvious person to show Xiomara’s change is her Mami (Mother). X’s mom is an incredibly religious woman, and she’s trying to get X to follow her footsteps, but X just can’t seem to get on the same page. She doesn’t identify with their religion. It almost seems incompatible with their life. The book reads, “When I look around the church/ And none of the depictions of angels/ Or Jesus or Mary, not one of the disciples/ Look like me: morenita and big and angry.” (Acevedo 59). This quote shows how she almost looks at them like they aren’t human. Their perfect, saintly lives are not the same as hers, like they don’t understand her, and she doesn’t understand them. This deeply affects her relationship with her mom, making them disagree on so many issues, and causing great dissension between the two. However, towards the end of the book, after X continues to butt heads with her mother on routine issues, she finally gets the confidence and joins her school's poetry club. The club makes her and her words feel valued and powerful. She moves on to reading at the big New York Citywide youth poetry slam, where she gets huge applause. Her family and friends are in the audience, even her Mami, who never liked her poetic tendencies, calling them hurtful, and dangerous. They go home and celebrate and Mami says to her, “Pa’lante, Xiomara./ Que para atrás ni para coger impulso.” (Acevedo 355).
(Translated: Onward! Never look back—not even to gather momentum.) This quote shows how Mami is now more in support of X, and she is slowly starting to feel repaired, and loved, building the relationship between her and her mother back up, to a stronger, more caring and loving scenario.
