Ashanty Barrios English 106 8/27/13 Response to Debbie Brandt Debbie Brandt shows the reader multiple perspectives

as to why literacy is important and how it varies from person to person. She addresses issues like accessibility and will power using Raymond Branch and Dora Lopez as examples of this. While both grew up in the same town, one was more easily exposed to different kinds of resources while the other was limited to what she could find on her own. Both however, took part in pursuing projects of self initiated learning (Brandt, 1997). Dora Lopez, for example, can easily be compared to Sherman Alexie in the way that she had a drive to become literate and used second hand books and whatever else she could get a hold of in order to achieve this. Then there is the case of Yi Vong, who made the most out of the situation of being put into a school that was for the visually impaired and deaf. Instead of feeling like he had been isolated, he took advantage of the audio programs and eventually learned English on his own. More importantly though, Brandt focuses a great deal of attention to the sponsors that help others become literate. After all, that is how she defines a sponsor, as someone who can enable or teach and in this case they are teaching literacy. In all of the examples discussed above, the sponsors are the greater beings that supported literacy in each of the people mentioned. In Raymonds case, it was the agents of the university. In Doras case, it was her parents who provided her with the books that she read. Without sponsors, it would have been exponentially harder for these individuals to become literate. It all comes down to resources, and for the most part, this is usually dependent of economic standing. As a college student, I have seen many occasions where peoples

literacy varies due to how often they were exposed to different kinds of literature and what kinds of literacy they were exposed to. More often than not, if they come from a poverty-stricken background, they had less access to certain types of literacy, such as more advanced technology and often higher level education. Those that came from a middle class or wealthier background had more opportunities to be exposed to better and more resources and that is the point that Brandt is trying to make in this article.

Reference: Brandt, Debbie. (1997). The Sponsors of Literacy. 1-26. University of Albany. New York.