Literacy Sponsors

This is my first brainstorming journal for my ENC 1101 class.  My audience while writing the journal was my ENC 1101 professor but now on my blog my audience is my friends back home in Jacksonville FL also taking a composition class but in another college.  I want to be able to share with my friends what I am learning at UCF.  Hopefully they can relate to what I am discussing because they are learning similar topics.  My first reading was about literacy sponsors by Dr. Deborah Brandt.  A literacy sponsor is basically whoever teaches or influences your literacy throughout your life.  A sponsor can be your parents, teachers, professors, teachers, peers, etc.  In my journal I talk about how Brandt defines a literacy sponsor, what they have to gain from sponsorship, how a sponsor can be "misappropriated" and examples.  Enjoy! 


Brandt believes that sponsors of literacy start to connect literacy as an individual growth to literacy as an economic growth.  She defines them as “…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.”  After reading the article, I consider of them as mentors to literacy students.  Every sponsor has certain characteristics, which include gaining benefits in someway.  Most of the sponsors of literacy talked about in the article were older, and more prestigious than who they were teaching. 

Brandt claimed that sponsors gain advantage from their sponsorship, “whether by direct repayment or, indirectly, by credit of association.”  This means that all of the sponsors of literacy she researched have always made some sort of profit from their work and accomplishments.  The motivation from the profit the sponsers will receive has to do with Brandt’s finding that a sponsors teaching can sometimes be “misappropriated” by the sponsored.  An inexperienced and uneducated sponsor can “misappropriate” knowledge to a learner just to gain a certain advantage from it.  

One example of how a sponsor can gain from their sponsorship is in the workplace.  For instance, an intern for a magazine company is there to learn the specific literacy of the different genres used and once they master the literacy they can add to the company.  The sponsor teaching the intern gains a knowledgeable employ.  Another example could be a parent teaching their child how to talk.  In this situation you could call the parent a sponsor of the child and the parent receives happiness from their child’s ability to speak.  From my experience I have been both the sponsor and the sponsored.  My teachers have been my literacy sponsors throughout the years which they receive payment.  Furthermore, in high school I was a Co-Captain on my dance team, which made me a sponsor to the other dancers.  I would help the younger dancers learn the certain literacy of the genres dealt with in the position I held.  I am very passionate about the team and once I left I gained pride and happiness knowing that I left the team with knowledgeable dancers to lead the team.