Sponsors of Literacy

WAW: Ch.3 Intro, Brandt (328-352) Sponsors of Literacy, Deborah Brandt

SUMMARY:

In Deborah Brandt’s article Sponsors of Literacy, she attempts to show how people don’t become literate on their own. She is saying that literacy is sponsored by the things around you, like people, institutions, and circumstances. Brandt also says how there are cases where people “misappropriate” a literacy sponsor’s intentions by using a particular literacy for their own ends rather than for the sponsor’s. Also that literacy sponsors can disempower and prevent people from becoming literate. She believes that we should assist and study individuals in pursuit of literacy, and also recognize how literacy is in pursuit of them.

CONVERSATION:

Deborah Brandt’s article somewhat reminds me of James Porter’s “Intertextuality and the Discourse Community.” I am aware that Porter’s was about text, and Brandt’s is about reading. The both seem more informative to me. They both seemed to be more based on information and a learning tool, where as some of the other articles are strictly just an argument. 

QD:

1. Literacy sponsors are figures who have turned up most typically in people’s memories of literacy learning. We normally think of sponsors as powerful figures.  They are usually richer, more knowledgeable, and more entrenched than the sponsored. 

AE:

2. I have not had literacy sponsors who have withheld certain kinds of literacies from me. I am unaware of my school banning any books, I have never been interested in reading. Sponsors have however forced certain kinds of literacies on me. All through out school I was forced to read books for class. Most of the time they were boring, but I had to read them in order to pass the class. My teachers always told us what we had to read, there was never an option. Except for summer reading we normally got to choose between 2 books. 

BEFORE YOU READ:

U.S. culture encourages and emphasizes reading. Through out your entire schooling from grades K-12, you are required to take some sort of English Class. You don’t always have to take a math, science or history. However English is always required. That’s how the U.S. emphasizes reading. There are always books being published, causing people to buy them and read them. In the community it is the same way, English is always stressed. We’re always having to read books and articles in our everyday lives. Normally people are good readers and writers because they read all of the time. Reading expands your vocabulary, as I have always been told by my mother. The more you practice something the better you will get, so the more you read, the better reader you will become.

OPINIONS:

I thought that this article was kind of interesting. I think that it could, however be shortened. I feel as if some of the information seemed repetitive and unnecessary. It could be helpful to me because I learned what literacy sponsors are. The ideas compare to my own experiences because I’ve had teachers that have taught me everything about literacy, so those would be my literacy sponsors. I agree with literacy sponsors because, my teachers have affected how I have learned literacy.