Brandt

Before You Read 

Comparing notes with my roommates about our school literacy experience was quite interesting. Growing up I attended Catholic school and our readings were very specific and we rarely had a choice in what we read. My school was strict on what we read and we could not read things that were to controversial or would cause chaos. My roommates went to schools that were different than mine and they often got to chose what books they could read. They were also not as strict on what they had to read. Activities that supported reading were things like accelerated reader and book fairs. 

Summary

In Deborah Brandt's article "Sponsors of Literacy", she discusses the importance of literacy. She also talks about how literacy has been improved and has changed. This article is aimed towards students who are studying and learning about literacy. The main goal of this article is to show the reader how much literacy has changed and why it is important to keep up on literacy.

Synthesis

After reading Brandt's article, I found that is it very similar to Porter's because they both have students as their audiences. Both articles aim to teach students the importance of learning about both of their topics (literacy and plagiarism). Both of these article also talk about how the topics have canned over time and how people have different views on them. Brandt's article can also compare to Dawkins article. I see the connection here because Dawkins's article is about punctuation, and Brandt's is about literacy. These articles are connected because learning about literacy also involves learning about grammar and punctuation. 

Dialectical Notebook

Response	Quotation
This is one of my favorite quotes from the article because it perfectly describes why literacy is important. It is one of the most important and dominant quotes from the article.	“Literacy looms as one of the great engines of profit and competitive advantages of the 20th century; a lubricant for consumer desire; a means for integrating corporate markets; a foundation for the deployment of weapons and other technology; a raw material in the mass production of information.” (pg. 333)
I agree with this quote because writing studies and literacy development go hand and hand and are both very important factors in literacy.	“The field of writing studies has had much to say about individual literacy development.” (pg. 333)
This quote is describing how some lower class people may not have the best resources for literacy development and don’t have access to literacy sponsors.	“Poor people and those from low-caste racial groups have less consistent, less politically secured access to literacy sponsors” (pg. 337)
I like this quote because it emphasizes the importance of the sponsors. It shows that without the powerful sponsors, literacy would be hard to keep up on and learn about.	“As I have been attempting to argue, literacy as a resource becomes available to ordinary people largely through the mediations of more powerful sponsors.” (pg. 339)
I found this quote interesting because I believe that literacy should prepare students more efficiently for the job market.	“In bringing attention to economies of literacy learning I am not advocating that we prepare students more efficiently for the job markets they must enter.” (pg. 348)

Meta Moment

Brandt's article has helped me specifically with understanding how literacy has changed over the years. The most relevant one of Brandt's goals is when she talks about sponsorship and the rise in literacy standards. Brandt's goals have helped me understand why literacy is important to learn about.

Thoughts

Brandt's article "Sponsors of Literacy" was not one of my favorites. It was not terrible to get through but it was also a bit boring. I enjoyed reading about how literacy has changed and improved and how the sponsorships have helped and effected these things.