sponsor my literacy final draft
TRANSCRIPT
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Kylie Niemand
Professor Jan Rieman
English 1103
December 2, 2010
Sponsor My Literacy
Deborah Brant has described sponsors of literacy 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” Brandt 407).
Everyday literacy is presented to me in a variety of forms through different medias.
Throughout my life I have had to overcome many difficulties associated with reading and
writing and my ability to understand the literature at hand. My literacy practices have
been positively and negatively influenced by a variety of people all adding their own
personal touches into helping me learn and improve. Without certain sponsors, I would
not be where I am today with my literacy skills.
Living in different countries has allowed me to develop my literacy skills in
accordance to the cultures and languages I have been surrounded by. I was born in South
Africa and remained there until I moved to America at the age of six. Being raised in a
bilingual household where my family spoke both Afrikaans and English, was a very
enriching experience for me. Unlike America where most stories we know come from
books and novels, in South Africa stories are spread more by mouth than literature.
Coming from that background, my earliest literacy experiences derived more from
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hearing stories rather than reading them. When I moved to America however, that all
changed.
Transitioning from South Africa to America was one of the most difficult
experiences of my life. I entered my first American school in the first grade, and from
day one, I felt out of place with my literary skills. I had come from a world of multiple
languages and was rapidly thrust into a world solely of English. I quickly found out that I
was behind compared to my classmates; while most of the kids in my class learned to
read and write in kindergarten, I never attended the equivalent in South Africa. I knew
how to spell a few words but discovered that some of my spelling was different such as‘colour’ in America was ‘color’. I began to understand how my spelling was dissimilar
and needed improvement, but greatly believed that I could read just as well as the other
kids but unfortunately it turned out to not to be the case.
The first book I can remember attempting to read front to back was a tiny
storybook about two people getting married. As a mother’s day gift, my entire class took
turns reading a book in front of a recorder so that we could present our mother with a tape
of our spectacular reading abilities. I took my book and practiced reading it over and over
the entire week before we recorded. I wanted to make my mother proud and wanted to
prove to myself that I could be as good as the American kids. When time came to record,
I continuously stumbled over words and often had to restart the sentence, however I was
determined to finish. I can still remember how elated I was when I completed the story,
feeling as if I had just won the biggest marathon in the world. However the feeling did
not last long. My reading skills were weak contrasted against classmates and my ever
lovely South African accent did not help the matter. Upon reading, I would pronounce
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words differently and immediately receive ridicule from fellow students who were all too
eager to point out my “wrong” pronunciation. At that young age, the most traumatic thing
that could happen to me was being made fun of, which became my life. Day in and day
out, I was constantly teased for having an accent and doing things differently from the
“American” way. To make matters worse, I was forced by the school to work with a
reading teacher twice a week. I would have to leave class in the middle of an assignment
to go to an office and practice my reading and pronunciation. The special attention I was
receiving by the reading teacher gave the kids in class more ammunition to tease me. The
ridicule I received in school led me to adopt an American accent and despise reading inevery form, as I became embarrassed by my inabilities.
I was constantly and unwillingly practicing my reading both inside and outside of
school. At this point in my life, my parents became a huge sponsor for me as they began
to work with me on both my reading and writing. Almost every night, my mother would
pull out Hooked on Phonics and we would sit at the table and play the game. I remember
bawling my eyes out because I kept getting some of the activities wrong, but was soon
comforted by my mother was always there to console and encourage. My mother would
take me to the library every week and help me pick out books. Instead of reading as a
chore, I began to see it as a way to spend some quality time with my mother. On
Thursday afternoons we would go to the library and pick out books and then proceed to
go to the park and read the books together. I soon associated reading with spending time
with my mother and therefore began to enjoy what I had detested for so long.
My father became an equally important sponsor for me as he began to incorporate
reading in my daily activities. In the car, on the way to hockey or softball practice, my
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dad would point to street signs and have me read them out loud. I would have to read the
sign and then have to integrate the words on the sign into a sentence. If I couldn’t
pronounce a word, instead of just telling me straight out, my father would first make me
sound it out a few times without his help. By allowing me to figure it out for myself, I felt
so proud when I correctly pronounced the word and craved for my father to pick harder
vocabulary for next time. By turning reading into a game for me, my father was able to
find a fun way for me to learn and enjoy reading.
By the start of eighth grade, my family had just moved to a new town and yet
again, my world was twisted upside down. I detested the school I went to and had a verydifficult time fitting in and making friends and instead turned to the world of literature.
My lunch period would be spent in the library and during free time you could always
catch me with a book. I started to enjoy reading as it gave me access to a variety of
information and stories. My house was constantly overflowing with books and after
finishing a great novel my parents would often share the book with me. I started pushing
myself to read harder and more complex stories with intricate language. I became
immersed in the stories I read and soon developed a passion for reading and consequently
writing. By the start of high school I felt confident with my literacy abilities due to my
eagerness to read, learn and expand my literacy skills.
My freshman year of high school greatly affected my literacy talents, as I was
forced to read classic pieces of literature and write more essays than I had ever before.
The assignments were hard but the way Mr. Bramanti taught the class and made the
readings so easy to understand, excited me as my love for reading grew. By freshman
year, I was reading a new book almost every week. I loved the attention I received from
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Mr. Bramanti when he asked me about my new book and how I liked the previous. When
it came time to write an essay, I felt confident enough that I could write a great paper due
to Mr. Bramanti’s class teachings. He gave me all the tools and knowledge I needed to
research, organize, and write my essay. I was determined to live up to not only the
expectations of my parents and teacher but that of my own.
During my sophomore year of high school I moved to Charlotte and once again,
everything changed. In my previous school, I had not taken any honors classes but when I
moved down to North Carolina I found the regular level classes at Mallard Creek High to
be too easy for me. I began taking honors classes and the following year I took AdvancedPlacement courses. I enjoyed getting a good grade when I knew I deserve it through the
hard work I had done. In the regular level classes I did not feel that satisfaction. My
junior year AP English class focused on composition of literature more than the literature
itself. For the first time in school, I focused on the writing aspect of literacy more than
the reading. My teacher Ms. Cogburn taught the class in such a way that it was actually
enjoyable to learn because we continuously used visual aspects throughout the lessons.
My entire junior year, we only read one book in class. Taking the focus off reading
helped me to refine my skills and learn how to be analytical and thoughtful in my writing.
Senior year was a rollercoaster for me as I left my family behind in Charlotte and
moved back up to Massachusetts to attend my previous high school. I spent the entire
year living with my best friend and his family because I hated Mallard Creek and was
determined to spend my senior year happy, surrounded by friends. I took AP English yet
again, and to this day it has been the hardest class I have ever taken. From our summer
assignments to our final book, I never stopped reading in that class. Over the course of
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the year I read over twenty books both inside and outside of the classroom. I had to work
harder in that class than in any of my other classes because the literature we were
presented with and asked to analyze and interpret had so much depth to it that a simple
glance through would not cover it. Every book I read, with the exception of one, had
some particular interest to me which captivated me to do well on the assignments. My
teacher Ms. Goldberg taught in such an intense, intimidating, and insightful way that
during class I felt unsure and frazzled by the literature, but by the end of a book, her
fanatical teaching methods would pay off and I would gain an intense knowledge of the
literature. She pushed me to improve my writing with every essay by revisitingeverything I wrote and forcing me to read it over and over while critiquing myself on
what I did wrong, so that I could learn and develop my skills for the next essay. I had an
essay due almost every week; the constant work forced me to continuously improve my
skills and think of new and innovative ways to read and understand while at the same
time write in new methods that better expressed my ideas.
From the insecure girl who was embarrassed by her reading skills and was
mortified by the thought of reading aloud in class, I now am confident in my literacy
capabilities. I still have difficulty with grammar and spelling but I am more certain with
my literacy abilities than I ever thought would be possible. If not for my mother and
father and their constant encouragement to read, write and practice, I believe I would still
detest reading. They always made literature fun and available for me and took extra steps
to help me become more convinced in my ability to read and write. Out of all the teachers
I have had in and out of school, Mr. Bramanti, Ms. Cogburn and Ms. Goldberg affected
me more than any other teachers had because of the personal touch they added in their
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lessons and the enthusiasm they had each and every day in class. I have had literacies
presented to me in a variety of forms from a plethora of people, each teaching me
something different about the world and the way we all communicate within it. Although
I had trouble in the beginning, I am proud of the way I have developed my literacy skills
and the ability I now have to read, write and understand various forms of literature.
Thank you sponsors, without you I would not be where I am today.
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Works CitedBrandt, Deborah. “Sponsors of Literacy.” Writing about Writing : A College Reader . Eds.
Wardle and Downs. Boston: Bedford, 2011. 406-26. Print.