Our
readings for unit one focus on understanding how people's individual
literacy trajectories develop. Your response for the readings must
closely examine the arguments presented by Deborah Brandt in her article
titled "Sponsors of Literacy" and consider how the experiences
presented by both Sherman Alexi and Malcolm X could somehow fit within
Brandt's argument. How might the stories of Sherman Alexie or Malcolm X
complicate the claims Brandt puts forward? It is not acceptable to
simply say that Alexie and Malcolm X had sponsors and therefore fit into
Brandt's argument. You must consider one of the three separate
subsections Brandt presents and fit either Alexie or Malcolm X into a
particular section. Make sure your synthesis ties either Alexie or
Malcolm X to one of Brandt's sub-arguments (Sponsorship and Access,
Sponsorship and the Rise in Literacy Standards, or Sponsorship and
Appropriation in Literacy Learning).
This
task calls you to deeply analyze Brandt's arguments and then synthesize
a new set of data to help extend Brandt's argument. It is important
that you integrate the experiences of Alexie and Malcolm X. Build
context for your claims by delivering a sense of Brandt's claims. Add
new evidence from the experiences of Malcolm X and Sherman Alexie.
Analyze the new evidence and connect it to Brandt's claim(s).
The best posts will demonstrate critical thinking and will thoroughly address the prompt. The most sophisticated postings will demonstrate an ability to synthesize Alexie's and Malcolm X's experiences with some of Brandt's claims. Postings that demonstrate innovative and unique approaches to this synthesis task will be rewarded.
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteIn Deborah Brandt’s essay Sponsors of Literacy, she tries to show us that people don't literate by themselves. She says that literacy is sponsored by things around us like people, family, school, institution and etc. She believes that we should appreciate institution and life experiences for giving us such this opportunities to improve our literacy.
ReplyDeleteBradt by comparison of the life of Raymond Branch and Dora Lopez, she shows that how no matter what it is, people have different views and perspectives in their lives. She shows that how two different people who are not the same in anything become the same in writing. She shows that how Dora Lopez, a Mexican American, who didn't know english well taught herself how to read and write and later on she became an English translator and communicator for her bosses.
I really liked the way bradt wrote this article and it was very helpful and informative for me. She also pointed out an important part that literacy is not self thought and requires sponsors and experiences.
In addition, I would connect Sherman Alexie's story to Sponsors of Literacy by Deborah Brandt. Literacy sponsor of Sherman was his father. His father provided him a lot of books in house even though they were poor. Without the help of his father he would not have been able to become the prolific author that he was where he had many books published, and he went from rags to riches, and not only riches in money but also riches in knowledge. When I see at Sherma's life deeply, the first thing I see is the evidence of importance of literacy sponsorship which completely changed his life. I believe this is very close to Dora Lopez life, although they both came from a poor family, they both achieved their goals and became very successful.
DeleteIn her essay, Sponsors of Literacy, Deborah Brandt describes a literary sponsor as a party who supports one's literacy in order to reap some kind of benefit from it. She also goes into great detail about how one's literary abilities can be manipulated by many factors including race, social class, family members or their environment in general. In my opinion, the main point of her essay is to connect one's personal development of literacy abilities to that of an economical standpoint. To do this, she uses examples of real life people and their experiences. She compares Dora Lopez and Raymond Branch to support the idea that a person's literacy potential does not only lie in the hands of their setting. It can be affected by the fact that one's race is the majority or the minority. Literacy materials, literary sponsors, and education were much more accessible to Raymond than to Dora. Despite them being raised in the same town at the same time, this was due to the families they came from.
ReplyDeleteIn the section "Sponsorship and the Rise in Literary Standards" Deborah points out that powerful sponsors have control over the distribution of certain literary materials. This deemed true in the excerpt of Malcolm X's autobiography "Learning to Read". Malcolm gained access to books in prison that he'd otherwise never have come in contact with. Charles Parkhurst (president of the Society for the Prevention of Crime) was the powerful sponsor in this excerpt. According to Malcolm, Parkhurst "had the money and special interest to have a lot of books that you wouldn't have in a general circulation." Parkhurst brought these books in to the prison and were put in the back of the library.
In the same section mentioned above, Deborah also touches on the fact that people are dependent on their literacy skills to protect their civil rights. Going back to Malcolm's autobiography, this was his whole purpose in becoming literate. He had all these feelings inside about the treatment of his people and had no way to express it and be taken seriously.
In her essay, Deborah Brandt states that the sponsored may be oblivious to the fact that the sponsor is benefiting by providing them with their opportunity or resources. She fails to mention that it is also possible for the sponsor to not be aware that they are indeed sponsoring someone else. Malcolm X goes into great detail about the motivations he had for becoming more literate. The biggest reason being the history of how the white man treated the black man. During the times of slavery, the white man had no intention of their actions to one-day cause the rise of the black community. Their plan was to suppress them. Leading me to my point that the suppression of the black man became the biggest sponsor of Malcolm’s literacy. In fact, he dedicated his life to becoming literate in order to share the truths that he’d discovered.
To help support the point Deborah made in the section "Sponsorship and Access" regarding differentials in performance due to "particular norms and values operating within different ethnic groups or social classes", I want to touch on the story of Sherman Alexi. His interest in literacy was sparked from a Superman comic book. He taught himself to read by following the pictures and reading aloud what he thought was happening. In kindergarten he was reading books that other kids his age couldn't. Sherman was Indian and in his culture, it was tradition to let non-Indian people take the lead. They were expected to fail. Needless to say, he was not going to be held back by these standards. He used this as a sponsor to become literate and became a writer.
Before reading Deborah Brandt's article, "Sponsor's of Literacy," I thought people were only interested in learning to read and write because they had to in order to communicate with others, but after reading her article I realized people took interest in going the extra mile no matter what they had going on in their life to master and broaden their writing and reading skills.
ReplyDeleteAfter reading the articles about Malcolm X, and Sherman Alexie, I believe that "Sponsorship and Access" would be the section that both stories would fall under.
Because, after Malcolm X went to prison for robbery, he soon learned that he did not know how to read the letters he received, so he decided to pick up a dictionary and copy it, and from there he began checking out books from the library inside the prison. He took it upon himself to master his writing and reading skills, and with that a whole new world opened up for him. Had he not been in prison he would have continued his life as a street hustler instead of mastering his writing and reading skills.
Sherman Alexie was a native American and was taught that native Americans weren't suppose to be smart. But, his father had many books, and enjoyed reading. And any time he could afford books, he bought them. Alexie started to enjoy books because he knew his father did and, he looked up to him. Had his father not been such an avid reader, he probably wouldn't have had the access to such a wide variety of books, or any at all since his school thought that it would be dangerous for Indians to be smart.
Brandt Response
ReplyDeleteDeborah Brandt’s essay was all about sponsors and how you write according to the things around you. As she sais “Sponsors, as I have come to think of them, are any agents, local or distant, concrete or abstract, who enable support, teach, model, as well as recruit, regulate, suppress, or withhold literacy—and gain advantage by it in some way”
She had studied the area of Sponsors for five years and had discovered that there are different types of Sponsors depending on your life. In her essay she mentions people named Dora Lopez and Raymond Branch which in fact have very different sponsors. For example Dora Lopez’s sponsors were the people around her like her parents. As for Raymond Branch, he had teachers since he worked with a computer at an early age. Even if people live different lives, they can still be great at writing and can be in the same level of writing as anyone else.
In the biography of Malcolm X, he learns to read and write in a prison. In my opinion, his sponsors were similar to Raymond Branch, which is like teachers. He was all about reading and writing and he was allowed to check out more books because they saw that he had an interest in books. But I think that the biggest sponsor that he had was himself. Because being in a prison like he was, the biggest motivator he had was himself. He believed that he could improve his writing and reading on his own and he did. I also believe that Sherman Alexie was mostly self motivated as well. He learned how to read at an early age by looking at the pictures of a superman comic book. Sherman also learned by reading some of his father’s books, newspapers, bulletin boards and etc. Both were thought to least likely become writers but succeeding in exactly that.
Deborah Brandt’s essay "Sponsors of Literacy" broadened my mind to how people become literate; how literacy affects their lives and how they pass it along so others become more literate.
ReplyDeleteShe shows that the circle of literacy changes and grows with time and technology, as she describes with the steam press and the printers losing their jobs along with their exposure to a literary outlet. She continues to explain how social and economic position can also play a part in one’s exposure and ability to learn. People of a lower socioeconomic lifestyle will have to take more time and effort to become more literate, if the ability is there at all. More learning possibilities and access seem to be available to those at a higher socioeconomic lifestyle.
Circumstances like employment, religious affiliation and family will present the desire and or need for someone to seek out learning possibilities. Therefore, changing the literacy of the student learning and people in those groups who see and are affected by what is learned.
Applying new literacy skills to life as they are learned will aid in growth for that person and the people in that person’s life, continuing the circle of literacy.
In Deborah Brandt’s essay, Sponsors of Literacy, she describes many types of sponsors such as parents, teachers, and even institutions. Brandt also says that many sponsors receive some kind of payment for their teaching, whether its directly through payment or the satisfaction of helping someone learn. This is not the only way she connected literacy to economics. “Literacy, like land, is a valued commodity…” In an economy, not everyone is above poverty level…well not everyone can read and in this essay she describes many obstacles in peoples struggle for literacy.
ReplyDeleteUsing Dora Lopez and Raymond Branch she showed that your sponsors access affects what you can learn greatly. In Malcolm Xs “Learning to Read” he also mentions that he wouldn’t have had access to such a collection of books if it weren’t for being imprisoned. Although the institution was a “sponsor” by providing a library, Malcolm created literacy for himself, copying every page of the dictionary. For Sherman Alexie, his comics were enough of a collection, with his dad as his main sponser. Although Alexie began his strive to literacy before any encouragement he had the good fortune of having his father able to provide new material often. In all the examples we see different variables and the effect they have on that person’s literacy.
In Deborah Bandts' essay "sponsor of literacy" shows people can be go a extra mile to learn how to read an write. An that people will take the extra to help teach others that literacy is something important to them. In Deborah essay shows that not everyone in life are giving the same opportunity to learn but must be willing to go extra to learn if you want.
ReplyDeleteIn "learning to read" Malcom x shows that even though he was in jail. He made the best out of it by that he learn to read an write. He use the books in jail to read because he didn't have that collection at beside him in jail. He self taught an self motivated him by being his own sponsor . Reminds me of Alexis Sherman growing up he used his own comics book to learn to read, and his father collection of different reading materials. His dad kinda basically his sponsor because he provided reading materials. Environment an money makes a different in the learning process.
In Deborah Brandt's essay she starts off by explaining how before the 20th century you would have had to take that extra step to read and write, and also learn pretty much through others above you or on your own. She says "As the 20th century turned the abilities to read and write into widely exploitable resources, commercial sponsorship abounded.' which in terms means learning became easier and you could now access knowledge through the internet rather than a mentor or sponsor. A sponsor is someone who has had and influence on your ability on gaining knowledge in whatever it is you wanted to learn about, someone you look up to in a field of study. Brandt went on to conduct a study on two socially diverse people. Raymond Branch was born in an information rich filled college town which helped him to adapt and learn easier rather than Dora Lopez who was a mexican american was raised in the same town as Branch except for the fact that there was a population of about 1% Mexican American, so she coming from a spanish family had to learn American culture and language on her own. , Brandt has proved that literacy is learned through sponsors, even if the sponsor is a teacher, parent, etc. and the more well off you are the better opportunities that are available to you was proven.
ReplyDeleteIn Brandt story Sponsors Of Literacy it explains different views of how literacy is taught and that no matter your up bringing how far you choose to go in literacy is up to you. As we get older we learn better and more ways to improve on our literacy. Brandt states that" The field of writing studies has had much to say about individual literacy deelopment."(Brandt 166) In the story she talks about a lady named Dora Lopez who is Mexican and how shecwas unable to speak english as well as write it. Dora was very determined to be successful in life and to be able to read and write. With many trials and errors she quickly learned that literacy requires alotbof effort. After reading Brandt story I learned that we need to appreciate the advantages we have to improve on our literacy. There is always more room for improvement for our literacy.
ReplyDeleteIn sponsors of literacy Brandt compared Dora Lopez was compared to a guy named Richard Branch. Although both Dora and Richard were both poor the privileged that Richard had was that his father provied him with many books in there house. Witch aloud him to have access to many literacy materials. In the autobiography of Malcom X he disscusses his life and the troubles he went through. Malcom learned how to read and write in prison. He was not forced to learn to do these things. What made Malcom whatvto improve on his literacy was him not being able to communitcaite through many diffrent ways such as reading , writing and talking. To change that Malcom everyday as well as nights was using a dictionary to learn to read and write. He would spend his days copying word for word in the dictionary until he knew what each word meant. What Brandt was trying to prove was that literacy is learned through sponsors such as our parents, teachers and our upbringings.
In Deborah Brandt's essay "Sponsors of literacy" she explains how the learning ability of literacy has changed since before the 20th century. Before you had to go completely out of your way to learn to read and write but now sponsors have become a huge factor in learning literacy.
ReplyDeleteIn reading "Malcolm X" it seems he was almost his own sponsor in a way. While he was in jail he received letters that he would not read nor understand which motivated him to start checking out books from the prison library and learn to read and write. He was completely self motivated for one reason, to broaden his literacy abilities to better himself.
Sherman Alexie was a poor Indian living on the reservation with her family, they lived paycheck to paycheck but whenever that had some money to spare his father would buy some books to broaden his collection. Having his father being a avid reader and since Sherman loved his father, he decided to pick up the books as well where his literacy world opened up. Without having his father being the reader he was Sherman Alexie would probably never of advanced his literacy skill as he did.