Maleeka Madison has written to Teen Dream Magazine asking for advice. She feels like a "freak" because she is teased about her dark skin color and tall, thin appearance. She tried changing her appearance by borrowing a friend's clothes and getting a new hairstyle, but kids at school still teased her. She is struggling with her self-image and doesn't know how to deal with the discrimination she faces at school. The letter asks what advice the magazine can offer to help Maleeka.

1. Created by Chloe E Edwards
For educational purposes only
Advice letter assessment task
Aims of the assessment:
1. To show that you can use language to give guidance and advice
2. To show that you can organize and expressthoughts, feelings, ideas and opinions in
an advice letter
3. To show that you can correctly use a range of grammar, vocabulary and different
typesof sentences
4. For you to write a letter with a particular audienceand purpose in mind
Assessment task:
You are a student writer for a teen magazine (called Teen Dream Magazine), and your job is
to give advice to teens who write in asking for help with their problems.
Maleeka Madison has written a letter to the magazine explaining the troubles she is
experiencing and asking for help. You are going to reply to Maleeka’s letter, as a fellow
teen, giving her guidance and advice about how to deal with her problems.
Requirements for this assessment:
Use language to guide and advise the Maleeka
Show that you have been paying attention to the details about Maleeka’s life in our
reading of the novel
Formatted like a letter
Unit question:How have people shown their feelings about discrimination?
Area of Interaction:Community & service
Significant concepts:There are many mediums that can be used to protest against
discrimination

2. Created by Chloe E Edwards
For educational purposes only
This is Maleeka’s letter:
Sections in bold are quotations taken from the
novel:
Flake, Sharon G. The Skin I’m In. Oxford University Press. Oxford, 2007
5th
May, 2013
Dear Teen Dream Magazine,
I sure need your help. I’m a freak and I don’t know what to do about it.
I feel like I’ve got no one to talk to ‘bout the things which been
happening to me at school. People been teasing me all my life. If it
ain't about my color, it's my clothes…It's bad enough that I'm the
darkest, worse-dressed thing in school. I'm also the tallest, skinniest
thing you ever seen. And people like John-John remind me of it every
chance they get.
My friend Charlese helped for a while by lending me her clothes, well, in
exchange for me doing her homework. I'm like Superman when I get
Charlese's clothes on. I got a new attitude, and my teacher's sure don't
like it none.
Then I decided to change my appearance, and talked my friend Sweets into
helping me. I wanted a new look like that model I saw in the magazine, so
that maybe people would start to see me differently and treat me
differently. I liked they new look I got, made me look like somebody worth
knowing. Then I got to school and all the kids teased me. I didn’t get
it. I looked good. I knew I did…I went to the bathroom…I looked in the
mirror and started crying. I thought to myself, 'you can glue on some
hair, paint yourself white, come to school wearing a leather coat down to
your toes and somebody would still say something mean to hurt your
feelings. That's how it goes at this school.'
My Daddy is dead, but he used to say, 'you got to see yourself with your
own eyes. That's the only way you gonna know who you really are.’ It’s
not that easy though, when people are calling you names and telling you
you’re nothin’. The only person who thinks I’m worth anything is my
freaky English teacher, who embarrassed me once by sayin’my skin was
beautiful. She’s real confident, but it’s easy when you’re older and have
lots of money. She don’t remember what it’s like being an ugly kid in
school.
What should I do?
M M