Charles's ePortfolio

Overall, sponsors affect literacy learning in a multitude of ways. Whether the sponsors are seen as positive or negative by learners/authors, sponsors in the majority do what is best for learners.

Fathers, mothers, brothers, sisters, teachers and counselors are just a few of the many people who affect the lives of students. A name for this group of people who affect students, especially when it pertains to literacy learning, is sponsors. As Deborah Brandt puts it “sponsors deliver the ideological freight that must be borne for access to what they have” (557). This means that whether it is support and encouragement or even access to materials, sponsors shape how sponsees  see and view aspects of life and learning. Most sponsors are what are called facilitators which are those who encourage and give materials to further a learners literacy. While facilitating sponsors help a learner, there are some sponsors who withhold from a learner. Though they differ in their roles facilitators and withholders are still sponsors who effect a learner’s literacy, albeit in different ways.

1. Im adding and challenging brandt within my paper, but I need to do more and use more evidence from brand and from litnars.
2. Because my draft was lacking in completion I have barely a tenth of the info and evidence I need to make a good paper.
3. I need to add in info/evidence from at least one more scholarly journal and at least three litnars.

 Hero narrative identity shift

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I find sponsors of both types, facilitating and withholding, to be interesting. In my paper, I’ll focus on how each type of sponsor affects the learner/author in/of the LitNar.

The Year I started to hate writing

Learning to Not Hate English

The Progress for Getting a Better Teacher for English

Sixty?

The Wizard of OZ Saved my Brian

How I Graduated Study Skills

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Q4. For each SPONSOR, imagine how he/she might view the central literacy moment in the story. Williams suggests the value of this thinking in suggesting that students “rewrite the key moment (or moments) of the narrative from the position of a different identity” (345). WRITE ABOUT the SPONSOR’s perspective. Briefly note relevant detail/evidence from the LN that suggests that perspective.

Q5. What strikes you as INTERESTING, COMPLICATED, or otherwise worth NOTING? (Use shorthand or fragments, but attempt to say WHY it’s interesting/complicated.) Here YOU start to decide what’s important FOR YOU.

Hannah

Hero/success

Sam

Hero/success

Kayla

Victim

Blake

Hero

Question 2) There are many reasons one may like or dislike reading and writing, or just dislike reading and like writing or vice versa. I, myself, love reading. It could be anything from an action-packed medieval fantasy to a nonfiction description of how the Knights Templar lost favor with Pope Clement V and were disbanded. Although I love to read, I’d rather run a gauntlet then write a paper. Whether or not one likes to read or write depends on how, and where, they were raised as well as their interests. I was raised in south central Illinois in a small farm town where most people care very little about reading and writing. My father can read but takes a month to read a three hundred page book whereas it takes me maybe two hours. It is the same for many people, that some can/will read slowly or quickly. Now whether this is because there are more important things at hand or a general lack of interest is dependant upon one’s situation and education,

Question 1) My brother was my “sponsor” in my literacy narrative. He encouraged me from a young age to read and learn as much as possible. He used to sit and teach me different words and sounds just as much as my parents did. My brother was sent overseas in the Army and I did not see him for three years, and when he came back he brought me books. Still, to this day, he buys me books for my birthday and for Christmas. Brandt says “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” (556). Some of these examples of sponsors are exactly what my brother did and continues to do. He taught me when I was a child all that he knew until I surpassed his capabilities and he encourages me to learn even more now that I am in college.

Question 4) The two “little” narratives I identify with are the “Hero” and the “Outsider”. I love to read but could care less about writing. I identify with the hero because ever since I was a child it was always “Do good in school, go to college, get a good job and make a lot of money boy so you don’t have to be a farmer or road worker.” I’ve always tried my best in school and will continue to do so until I get a good job and make enough money to improve not only my life but my family’s as well. The other “little” narrative I identify with is the outsider because of my level of intellect. Back in my small farm town highschool I was a decent football player and one of the most academically inclined students. I never really fit in with the cool popular crowd or the nerdy crowd either. Most of my school was made up of extremely athletic jocks who don’t tend to accept a six foot three inch tall three hundred and fifty pound kid who wears glasses, slacks and a sweater vest most of the time. I ended up recieving the most scholarships and attending the best college of everyone in my class. But, even out here in college, I’m an outsider. Here I’m probably the least academically inclined student, everyone else in this college was able to take A.P. classes in all sorts of subjects and the only hard class I took in highschool was Honors English that did everything regular classes did but with more class discussions/debates.

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