Brandt Summary

In this article, Brandt argues that people can only obtain their literacies through sponsor. Sponsors are pedagogues who help guide and clear the road for the sponsored. Usually, scholars have something to gain from teaching the sponsored as well. It could range from financial gains to professional recognition, but no matter the purpose, the sponsor must grant the sponsored the same kind of access to the knowledge that they have. Brandt defines sponsors 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" (334). Brandt states that the sponsor may also regulate the knowledge of the sponsored and restrict some information. An example is that high school language teachers discourage students from learning grammar on their own by giving them a failing grade on an assignment if the student presents a grammar structure or form that they were not taught from the teacher. This is because language teachers accuse this as a form of plagiarism. Brandt also pursues the notion that the economic and political background of an individual can heavily affect his or her literacies. Poor and working-class families often find themselves with restrictions to information and opportunities, while wealthy and successful families have more connections and access to information and technology. There are three key issues that Brandt addresses: "(1) how, despite ostensible democracy in educational chances, stratification of opportunity continues to organize access and reward in literacy learning; (2) how sponsors contribute to what is called "the literacy crisis," that is the perceived gap between rising standards for achievement and people's ability to meet them; and (3) how encounters with literacy sponsors, especially as they are configured at the end of the 20th century, can be sites for the innovative rerouting of resources into projects of self-development and social change" (336). Brandt interviews several people who address these issues for example: Lowery who at first struggled with education, developed his adult literacy through classes and workshops on union and law language. Brandt ends her argument by stating that she is not advocating that teachers should better prepare students for the job market, but she is arguing that literacy is in a constant pursuit of individuals and that we should raise an awareness for that.

AE1:

 I was born in a Vietnamese family who immigrated to the U.S. My family did not necessarily come to the U.S. in a search for a better life as we were already financially stable in Vietnam, but we did it due to the educational opportunities held in the states. My father is a mathematics professor at Ohio University whereas my mother eventually became both a math instructor and a nail technician. Due to their occupations at Ohio University, I had access to both the technology and the information at the institution. I began learning html programming at the age of 8 and I had more research sources in comparison to many of my classmates; although many of my friends also had professors as parents. In an analysis, I am much more similar to Branch than Lopez due to my economic background, but I am similar to Lopez in a way that I belong to an immigrating family. I have developed literacies in music due to my piano lessons and my participation in symphonic choir. Since my half-sister is a German citizen, I was able to learn German from her. From my parents, I learned how to speak Vietnamese and English. From the school, I learned how to speak French, and through self-instruction, I gained some fluency in Japanese. Since I've had so many opportunities to learn various things, I consider my sponsors to be very adequate. The one thing I wish I had access to is bible literacy. Since so many texts, organizations, and cultural items allude to Christianity, I find myself slower than some of my classmates in understanding various contexts.