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Nicholas Williams
Professor Connie Rothwell
UWRT-1103-015
16 March 2016
Preface
Throughout the writing process of this essay I came across very helpful methods. The
peer editing on our own blogs for each of our groups was very helpful for feedback. Not only
one person was editing your paper and helping you improve it, but your entire group could help
you. The outline was also a very useful tool in my writing process because it gave me a template
to organize my paper and work from. Honestly none of the methods I used during this writing
process were not useful, all helped me in the long run. My group, The Nature Boyz, reviewed my
drafts and helped me figure out where I needed improvement. For example, I was told I needed
many more quotes and to cite Brandt more. Also, when I finished my final version of the essay I
sent it to Zach Moran for his feedback because he is the best at giving me feedback, which
helped a lot. A way I feel this process could have been more helpful would be sending out a
google doc of my draft in which the entire group could edit it. They would be able to highlight
areas they felt needed to be improved and even write comments for feedback on the highlighted
area. My favorite parts of my essay are when I give my take on each of the concepts I talk about
and use evidence and examples from our narratives to back them up. Overall, the writing process
of this essay was very helpful and efficient.

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The Causes of Literacy

The Sponsors of Literacy is an article by Deborah Brandt where she discusses her
views on certain concepts and how they affect ones literacy. She talks about sponsorship, access,
change in standards, and appropriation/transfer. I agree with Brandts views on the concepts of
sponsorship and access, but I believe she could have used much better examples. She uses very
strange and complicated examples that dont necessarily cover all scenarios. I am going to
explain Brandt and Is take on these two concepts, as well as provide examples I would have
used if I had written this article.
One of the main concepts in Brandts article is sponsorship. Sponsors are people who
teach others certain tasks. Brandt presents the argument that all sponsors Gain advantage by it
in some way (Deborah Brandt 2). One example of this she uses is Little Leaguers who wear the
logo of a local insurance agency, not to advertise for the insurance company, but to get to play
baseball (Brandt 4). The little league team being oblivious to the fact that the insurance company
is advertising; they just want to play baseball. My personal take on the concept of sponsorship is
that for the most part Brandt is right. I believe ones literacy reflects on how well the academic
sponsors were throughout their life. I also believe all sponsors want to receive some type of
advantage in return; however the way she makes it seem to me is that what they gain in return is
the only reason they are doing it. For example, in Zach Margoliss narrative his grandfather
teaches him how to fish. Zachs reasoning for the advantage he was gaining was that it was
tradition and it made him feel good, however I believe his grandfather thought about that either
before or after not during the experience. An example where I would say the sponsor was

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thinking about the advantage they would gain in return would be in Ethan Simmonss narrative.
His narrative was about his coach teaching him how to shoot a basketball with his non-dominant
hand. Im sure the coach wanted to help but he had in mind that it would make Ethan a better
player which in return would make the coachs team better.
Another concept Brandt discusses in her article is access. She stresses the link between
literacy and access to certain opportunities. She states Poor people have less consistent, less
politically secured access to literacy sponsors -- especially to the ones that can grease their way
to academic and economic success (Brandt 6). In order to show this, she uses the example of the
different lives of Raymond and Dora, whom each ended up living in the same Midwest town.
Raymond is a European American who had a much more privileged life having access to
computers growing up and eventually attended the local university and is now a successful
freelance writer of software and software documentation (Brandt 7). Dora is a Mexican
American whose grandparents were farmers and parents worked hard to provide for her, she
ended up going to the same university and now works for a cleaning company (Brandt 7, 8). This
shows how since each of them had access to different sponsors and privileges, they each ended
up achieving a different level of success despite living in the same town and going to the same
university. I completely agree with her perspective on access and literacys correlation with one
another. Having access to different teachers and facilities at a school can completely change how
well someone is educated. In Zach and Is narratives we both are being taught how to drive by
our fathers. In order to do this we had to have access to money in order to be able to afford a car
to learn in. I know its sad to say, but we also had access to our fathers. Not everyone is fortunate
enough to have their father around to teach them valuable lessons in life.

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Brandt presents great ideas about the concepts of sponsorships and access. The main
problem I had with her article was her examples were not as good as she could have made them.
The Raymond and Dora example was too long and complicated; she should have just taken the
main points instead of going into extreme detail in each of their life stories. Overall, I agree with
Brandts ideas on the concepts of sponsorships and access.

Sources
Brandt, Deborah. "Sponsors of Literacy." College Composition and Communication. 49.2
(1998): 165-85. Print.

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Margolis, Zach. Waterlogged.

Moran, Zach. Basket of Eggs.
Simmons, Ethan. Ball is Life.