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Alexandra Prew

Professor Rebecca Agosta

UWRT 1101-035
8 October 2015
Talk Back Assignment
Due to a death in my family, I was not able to participate in receiving comments and
suggestions from my peers.
My overall reaction to my teachers comments on my Literacy Memoir was, I was
surprised but also in agreement with all of her comments. I thought I was going to have to
completely reconstruct my paper due to the fact that I didnt think I added enough culture into it.
She helped me understand that my IEP was part of a culture. I was surprised in the sense that I
had thought I would need to do a lot more work on it for the final project than the comments
stated. Although I went to the WRC for help on my memoir, I was only there for the drafting
piece so I wasnt 100% confident in my whole paper. After looking it over, I realize like
Professor Agosta commented, that I need replace some things in my paper in order to make it
flow better.
In my first paragraph, a very helpful suggestion was to briefly explain how I got the rest
of my concussions (rather than just explaining the first one) and at what ages did they occur?
Previously, I felt that including the rest of my concussions would just draw out the essay and I
didnt want the reader to get bored. After reading Professor Agoutis explanation on it, I recognize
that it might be confusing for the reader to understand when my other concussions occurred.
When I wrote it, I made it sound like they all happened before I went to high school. I plan to
revise this by briefly telling how and when my other concussions occurred, right after I described

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my first one. I I will explain how they were for the most part pretty spread out and how it has
affected me as a learner. Also in my first paragraph, I stated what IEP stood for but I didnt
describe exactly what it was. Professor Agosta explained that many readers will not know what
an IEP is. I plan to briefly explain it in a way that it is short an efficient. I feel as if the reader
might get bored if I drag it out. In my third paragraph, I described how I loved to read in my
early elementary school grades. It was suggested that I add in what made me love reading so
much and why my favorite book was Harriet Youre Driving Me Wild. I plan to do exactly that
as well as include how it was a picture book and what made me like the picture books the most.
Also in my third paragraph, my teacher suggested that I explain what makes it hard for me to
read. I plan to explain how taking in and understanding the information as well as processing the
words that I am reading makes it challenging. Professor Agosta suggested that I dont jump
around my ages as much. I move from kindergarten straight into college and I need to slow down
and reorganize my paragraph here. I plan to explain how each individual concussion slowly
affected my learning as well as reading and writing and why/ how I still needed help in high
school even after graduating my IEP. In paragraph for it was suggested that I need to steer back
in the direction to my Literacy Memoir rather than turning it into an Academic Narrative. I
included in this paragraph the One Voice excerpt that we read in class. I plan to re-locate that
expert and relate to it in a different spot in my Literacy Memoir so that my paper flows better. In
my fifth paragraph, I explained how not being able to read like most kids, it was quite
humiliating. I gave the example of how a guy in my class tried to make it so I couldnt read out
loud because it was too hard for the other kids in my class to follow along. I plan to explain how
I reacted to his comment. I ended up not reading aloud in class because I didnt want my issues to

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cause other issues for the students. I also didnt want to handle the embarrassment of having a
stutter and not being able to control it. Last but not least, the last comment Professor Agosta
made was extremely helpful. She stated that I should focus more on the first part of my paper
rather than the last because in the beginning it is more like a literacy memoir. I plan to do exactly
that as well as include how my teachers supported me and what they did to make sure I
understood the material. I also plan to elaborate on the example I gave of the boy who made a
rude comment about my reading. I also plan to include how I deal with my issues in college and
how it has affected me that most of my professors dont know about them.
Lastly, I plan to reconstruct my paper and completely revise and change the second part
of my paper starting with where my paper seems to start as another paper (a narrative essay.)