Honors English, hr. 2
Ms. R-G 5/22/11
Paideia 7-10 pages of notes
1. What do you think the main reason Hannah Baker killed herself was?
Answer: I believe the main reason why Hannah killed herself is because she felt like no one cared about her and her feelings, and because she felt lonely and was very vulnerable. I mean Hannah had nothing really going well in her life at the time. For example on pages 165- 168 Hannah talks about a guy named Zach. The thing that Zach did to Hannah to me was that he took away her self-esteem and confidence, everyone knows that everyone in the world needs self-esteem and confidence to just go through life daily without being down. See Hannah was in a Peer communications class, and in this class all the students has these brown paper bags. In these bags the other students in the class could leave nothing but nice comments in them. The purpose was to write down what u really felt, like if you liked someone’s haircut or something then u wrote a note and put it in their bag! So Zach decided to take all of Hannah’s notes out to make it seem like no one liked her and no one paid any attention to her. This made Hannah very angry, but mostly sad and depressed because she felt no one cared about how she felt. So to me that is one of the main reasons why I think Hannah killed herself.
2. What message do you think this book puts out to stressed and problematic teenagers?
Answer: I think this book sends out a lot of messages to stressed and problematic teens but the most important message I think he was trying to say is that its important the way we treat others. Even though someone appears to brush off a bad comment or to not be affected by a rumor, it’s pretty much impossible to know everything else going on in that person’s life, and how we might be adding to his or her pain. All of us do have an impact on the lives of other people and that’s a fact! We just have to watch what we say to people and make people feel good about there selves and who knows, maybe one of us will safe a persons life one day!
3. Do you feel Hannah was at fault for some of the bad things that happened to her? Why or why not? Give an example.
Answer: The way I feel about if Hannah was at fault for some of the bad things that happened to her is that in a way she is but in a way she isn’t. I feel this way because, for example on pages 170 to about 174 it talks about how wrote a note to her Peer communications teacher Mrs. Bradley, and on the note Hannah wrote if the class could talk about suicide? So the next day Mrs. Bradley took up her offer to talk about suicide, considering no one knew who wrote that note, (not even the teacher knew) Hannah was very careful not give herself away to anyone. Hannah just wanted to hear what everyone had to say about it. Their thoughts, feelings, and boy did they tell! One person said “it was going to be hard to help without knowing why the person wanted to kill there self”? Then others joined in, “if they’re lonely, we could invite them to sit with us at lunch”. “If it’s grades, we can tutor them.” “If it’s their home life, maybe we can… I don’t know… get them counseling or something.” Then one girl said what everyone was thinking. “It’s like whoever wrote this note just wants attention. If they were serious, they would have told us who they were.” Therefore I think its her fault but not her fault because all that stuff that was said proves that if Hannah would have just told the class she wrote the note then the class would have helped her get through things. I mean I understand that telling the whole class would have been super hard but she could have at least told the teacher and the teacher could have told the class for her. I bet if Hannah found a way for the class knowing about she wrote that note, that she would probably still have a better chance of living still!
4. If you were in Hannah’s shoes, what would