Applying Myself Discussion Questions

1. Describe the storys audience. This means to whom does the narrator seem to be speaking? Provide a short explanation of your thoughts. 2. What in the text gives you the impression that the narrator is intelligent? What gives you the impression that he is still just a kid? Provide a passage that you feel supports your answers for each of these questions. 3. Identify places in the text where the author uses rhetorical questions and an anecdote as literary techniques to convince the reader that he deserves special accommodations for his ADD? 4. Why do you think Dweck chose to include the Edgar Allan Poe quotation which appears at the end of the essay? How does it clarify the authors intended meaning of the essay? 5. What did the narrator learn from this experience? 6. Do you think the narrator was correct when he assumed Mrs. Smith was unable to understand his learning disability? Imagine her perspective; why else might she have behaved in such a stubborn manner? Is it possible that the narrator is the one who does not get it?