Week 9：Akeelah and the Bee

• 　　Akeelah and the Bee is a story of a eleven-year-old African-American girl who was not interested in school but was good at playing Scrabble and always get good grades on her spelling tests. As a result, her teacher encouraged her to attend the spelling bee competition in her school. Without a doubt, she won the competition and inspired Dr. Larabee, a English professor teaching in UCLA. Even though Akeelah got the champion in her school , she didn't want to join the further competition because she didn't want her peers to make fun of her any more. In the end, her oldest brother, who was in the air force convinced her and she finally won and got the ticket for the next competition. However, she also faced some difficulties during the process. Her mother didn't agree her for practicing so hard for the spelling bee because she thought that studying were much more important than this competition. Moreover, gibes from her second brother and her peer never stopped.

•      Akeelah lived in South Los Angeles with her widowed mother and her siblings. The community they lived in was a African-American community which had lower income and worse public security than North Los Angeles. Akeelah didn't like to go to school because she was not interested in school courses and also because some of her classmates always make fun of her. She really loved playing Scrabble because it was the game her late father had taught and played with her when she were little. She was really lucky to met her homeroom teacher Mrs. Cross, who noticed her talent and recommended her to sign up for the spelling bee competition in her school. However, Akeelah had weak self-confidence and decline her teacher in the beginning. When she finally plucked up her courage and won the competition, her talent discovered by Dr. In the beginning, Larabee. Dr. Larabee wanted to coach Akeelah and help her to win the next competition; however, Akeelah refused and thought that she could coach herself by her own way. After Akeelah joined the next competition and met Javier and his club, she learned that she really needed a coach and taught her how to "spell". She went to Dr. Larabee's place again and bagged him to coach her.