Project One

 

Challenges Faced by Literacy

Deborah Brandt defines sponsorship as” Figures who appear in people’s memories of literacy who can be older relatives, teachers, or anyone who serves as a powerful leader that initiates the process of reading and writing (167). This can be interpreted in many different ways whether it be in a positive or negative connotation. When first reading through the article “Sponsors of Literacy”, I was convinced that a sponsor was someone I looked up to that taught me how to read. I concluded that a sponsor was similar to a mentor that teaches one how to be literate. However when analyzing the stories told within the article, I determined that even though a sponsor is present, that doesn’t necessarily mean it leads to the path of literacy. A sponsor serves as both the angel and devil sitting on one’s shoulder. A sponsor dictates whether one has the motivation to learn how to read and write, but also paves the path which is the struggle for one to become literate. I believe that literacy is mostly self-taught, but it is the one’s we look up to and the resources given that begin the process of literacy.

Without reading and writing, life is very limited. According to Katherine Hansen from quintcareers.com, says” More than 58 percent of jobs include hours of reading and writing” (Hansen, 1). In today’s society it is critical to have the ability to read and write, because if you want a job to make money, literacy is a requirement. Reading and writing go hand in hand but it all starts with determining who and what your sponsor is. Going back to when I was child, reading and writing was a constant struggle because I did not know how to do either. It shaped who I am today and determined what kind of work ethic I have as a person.

In my personal experience, I used technology specifically television to teach me how to read and write when I was a child. Being that my parents were always working, I was alone with my Grandma who mostly all the time so I had no idea how to read or write. I was struggling with Pre-school because I could barely understand the teachers and I couldn’t play with any kids because of the language barrier, due to the fact that I was speaking a different language at home. This led me to watch television constantly as much as I could. I was accidentally playing with the remote and I hit the captions button and words appeared on the screen. By watching many movies and programs, I was starting to learn English. I soon started to write down what I was looking at even though I didn’t know the meaning. I then asked questions to my parents about what the words I wrote down meant, and began learning how to read.

Even though my sponsor were my parents who constantly told me that without reading or writing I would never be successful, no one took the time out of their day to teach me what I needed to know. I had the support and resources to learn how to read and write, but no mentor to sit down with me and really teach me. Due to my personal experience with reading specifically, I disagree with Brandt because I was privileged as a child, but it took me many years to master reading and writing. In fact, I was significantly behind than those whose were economically poor, to a point where I almost got held back. I was a child with no one taking the time to teach me what I needed to know which put me in a situation where teachers had to speak with me separately because I could not grasp any content, especially when it came to the topic of reading.

 

Reading is the action or skill of reading written or printed matter silently or aloud. When thinking about one’s daily routine, reading is involved in about every single task one completes throughout the day. For example, reading signs, logos, watching television ads, looking for songs on an IPod, restaurants, reading labels, and buying certain products for one’s personal use all involves reading. Imagine living a life where one couldn’t read and being unable to buy what brand they want because he or she cannot read. Imagine not being able to use a key board, because you don’t know what letters mean what and you don’t know what letters make up what words.

Reading depicts what jobs one can get because of the inability to read. A prime example of this is looking at the movie “Holes”. Zero’s character was in the juvenile detention camp where he didn’t have the ability to read. Due to him being illiterate, he ended up getting arrested because without reading, one is limited to what they can do with their lives. However “Caveman” played by Shia Labeouf, taught Zero how to read where they both ended up leaving the juvenile detention and turned their life around. In this case, “Caveman” was Zero’s sponsor because he was the one who influenced him how to read and began the interest in Zero wanting to learn how to read and write. As Brandt states, “Social economic status effects how one becomes literate” (169-170). Zero’s experience was much like Malcolm X, where they both went to jail before learning how to be literate.

A sponsor I believe serves a double-ended sword, where it can progress one’s ability to read and write, but also slows them down. Malcolm X was not literate prior to going to prison, but although one could argue that prison was his sponsor, it still is jail where criminals are convicted of crimes. Nobody wants their freedom to be taken away, yet that is what happened to Malcolm to become literate. It took being locked up with nothing better to do to learn how to read and write. His method of learning how to read and write was discussed in     “Learning to Read” where he said, “I sat down and would copy every word in the dictionary until I learned what they all meant” (2). There are many different methods of learning how to read and write and in this case, it was prison the worst place to be to educate him.

When waking up in the morning, many people will immediately check their social media no matter what site they are on. They will scroll through Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and whatever else there may be. A simple task like checking social media or sending a text message all have one thing in common, reading and writing. Writing is the skill of putting coherent words on paper and creating text. Text messaging has increasingly been the number one use for a cell phone. In fact according to Pewinternet.org,” 90 percent of Americans own a cell phone, where 67 percent of those people are constantly sending text messages” (Smith, 7). Referring to the article” All Writing is Autobiography” Murray demonstrates, “I would write constantly about my personal experiences to further advance my reading and writing skills” (73).

Aside from reading, writing was an immense struggle for me. I would avoid writing in school because I wrote very poorly where nothing was coherent, it was just random words that I had no idea their meaning on paper. This was a struggle that carried all throughout my high school career. Even writing a five paragraph essay was very difficult, until I started writing for fun. Like Murray, when I was in high school I started writing about the events that I experienced throughout each day. I would step by step write about how I was feeling about a certain situation, followed by a prediction of what the next day might be like. The first journal entry was not grammatically correct and never made any sense. As time went on, I bought a book that was called “English for Dummies”. The more research I conducted about writing, the better I was becoming. Being that English was never my favorite class, I never bothered to learn about it. This took me back to what my parents said about literacy, and I wanted to change the way I was reading and writing. I dreaded reading but started to find a passion for it when my writing started to change.

Referring back to what said about reading and writing going hand in hand, the more I was reading, the better my writing was becoming. In the article, “The Joy of Reading and Writing” Alexie Sherman said,” Superman comics is what had me interested in reading and it was a way I learned how to read” (11). Since television served as a teacher for me, I had to build upon that which wasn’t much to work with. That is why I started reading books about writing and started writing about my personal experiences. Much like Murray, my entire life was being documented where certain events became my main topic of writing. I was acquiring knowledge of my personal life and conducting it into my write.

Heading into college, I made it an assignment to go back and edit all my journal entries I wrote in high school. At this point I was an efficient writer because of all the papers I needed to write were constant practice. I was now in love with writing and couldn’t go a day without either reading or writing. My knowledge of vocabulary grew and I was writing ten page papers easily without any difficulties. I realized that the older I was becoming, I understood why my parents told me what she did. If they didn’t discuss how important literacy is, I wouldn’t have the motivation to learn. Even though they said many statements about literacy, I still don’t understand why neither took the time to teach me when they taught my sister. They made me struggle throughout elementary school and always was behind because they never taught me. Sparking an interest and teaching are two complete opposite tasks. However, because I had resources to self-teach, which was very difficult at the time and still is a struggle today. My literacy skills were built upon television as Alexie’s was built on Superman comics. I believe that it is the little things in life that spark a personal interest, which drives one to become better in a certain area. That area for me was reading and writing. Something that I hated and was never proficient at, became something I couldn’t live without.

Based on my personal experiences of what I went through is the reason why I am torn between Brandt’s ideas of sponsorship. I do agree that my sponsor started the first step into becoming literate, but although I had the tools like Murray and was privileged, it slowed me down and created an uphill road to conquering literacy. As prison was a sponsor for Malcolm X, it created a battle for him but became a sponsor to someone else.  Of course I learn something new every day but if one doesn’t have a sponsor, I consider that one becomes a sponsor to someone else.  Not having a sponsor or the resources to become literate, is where I disagree with Brandt.

I understand that she doesn’t argue that if one doesn’t have a sponsor they will never be literate, she suggests that it will take the longer to learn and will have more obstacles to face. Knowing that sponsorship isn’t as ideal as one may think, it is self-motivation that creates one to be literate. In my own life, writing will always be something that is continuously being learned and always needs to be improved, but that is because I want to keep working on it. I had sponsors who supported me but didn’t give me the time needed to learn. Throughout my life and growing up it was clear that literacy was not only important to communicate with the world, but it was competition that pushed me to achieving higher education.

Literacy is constantly becoming more difficult and now one cannot get a job without having a Master’s degree at least. With competition growing, education and literacy are critical to living a decent life. As for me, literacy has and always be a top priority because of how important it is. Due to the fact that one needs a minimum of a Bachelor’s degree to hold any job in today’s society, it is now proven that literacy is more important than ever. Being that both my Mom and Dad always told me how important literacy was, I knew that I was going to get my Master’s when starting college. Some may argue that literacy is not needed to find certain jobs.

For example, Floyd Mayweather is a multimillionaire boxer who does not have the ability to read or write. Instead, his job is to use physical force where reading and writing is not needed. Lowery from Deborah’s article was another example of finding a job having no literacy, being that he was in the military. Instead the military needed him for combat. However in both situations, literacy is needed. Mayweather cannot even read the name of his competitors or the brand of what he is wearing. When it says “Round 3”, all he can see is the number 3. Deborah Brandt, who consistently comments that socioeconomic class and lack of sponsorship effects literacy, is proven by Mayweather’s background. His entire family were professional boxers, where his mom and aunt died of drug use. He had a lack of resources, and followed into his dad’s footsteps of being a boxer, because nobody taught him or led him into the interest of literacy.

On the other end of the spectrum for Lowery, today’s military has advanced where one needs to of course learn how to read a map. Imagine being in the military and not being able to know your location or read the name tags of your fellow soldiers. He saw that his father liked reading the newspaper and was into politics that sparked the interest of literacy. He did have an advantage growing up middle-class and being Caucasian, yet he too struggled with literacy because of his sponsor who never placed an importance or took the time to teach him how to read and write. This is why I place an importance to literacy. Being that I am now about to graduate college, that they were correct.

As I come to an end, hearing others’ experiences with the road of literacy was something I never thought about. As I mentioned literacy is not something we are born with, yet in today’s society we use reading and writing in our everyday life, that we forget who and what taught us to become literate in the first place. Having a sponsor is the first step when becoming literate because as a child, but soon realize it is those exact people who make it that much harder to learn how to read and write.

As we get older, we now understand the challenges many had when learning reading and writing. I believe that literacy is not just about those two aspects, but about what we did to have to the ability to read and write. I had a sponsor but it was because of them I struggled with reading and writing. I cannot say that I am unhappy with how things turned out because I taught myself how to read and write, and if I didn’t struggle, I would still be the same little girl who was illiterate and behind in class. Literacy should be important to everyone but not all can learn right away because of their sponsors. Reading and writing can be problematic, which is why we must continue to educate ourselves and others so that they do not have the same challenges in order to be successful.

 

 

 

References

Alexie, Sherman. “The Joy of Reading and Writing: Superman and Me.” The Most Wonderful

Books: Writers on Discovering the Pleasures of Reading. Eds. Michael Dorris and Emilie Buchwald. Minneapolis: Milkweed, 1997.  Web. 13 Sept. 2015.

 

Brandt, Deborah. “Sponsors of Literacy.” College Composition and Communication. 49.2

(1998): 165-185. Jstor. Web. 13 Sept. 2015.

 

Hansen, Katherine. “Writing Skills: More Important Than Ever on the Job. “Writing Skills: More       

Important Than Ever on the Job. Live Career, 20 June 2015. Web. 10 Sept. 2015.

 

Malcolm X. “Learning to Read.” The Autobiography of Malcolm X. New York: Random House,

1964. Web. 12 Sept. 2015.

 

Murray, Donald M. “All Writing Is Autobiography.” College Composition and Communication.

42.1 (1991): 66-74. Jstor. Web. 14 Sept. 2015.

 

Smith, Aaron. “U.S. Smartphone Use in 2015.” Pew Research Center Internet Science Tech RSS.

Pew Research Center, 01 Apr. 2015. Web. 11 Sept. 2015.