sponsors of literacy 1st draft
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Jenna Rolf
Professor Jan Rieman
English 1103
January 28, 2011
This essay was actually exciting for me to write because it is the first one that I have
written all year. The hardest part of this essay was writing the conclusion paragraph. I
deliberated on how to end this paper for a very long time, and I am still not sure I like it too
much. The introduction paragraph did not take as much time as I thought it would. Sometimes
introduction paragraphs are hard for me to start and other times they are not too bad.
Throughout this essay I had a hard time making sure that I was actually following the prompt
and that everything I was writing flowed well and made sense. I am looking forward to feedback
on this paper so that I can make sure I stayed consistent in writing about the right topics and
using literacy in an effective way.
Literate Life and its Sponsors
Literacy, though often taken for granted in most cultures in todays society, is one of the
greatest accomplishments that a person could ever achieve in their lifetime. Becoming literate
seems so simple to most because people are being taught at earlier ages to understand and
interpret ideas and information given. However, 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 are all sponsors that help every person become
literate. So, in fact, literacy and the act of becoming literate or not is determined by an extremely
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large number of places, people, and events that most do not even realize. Parents, teachers,
myself, and even children younger than me have all taught me or taken away from me different
types of literacy in many different places while using many different resources. I never noticed
how wide the variety is of all the people, places, and resources that have helped me achieve
literacy throughout the years. And although there are not as many suppressors of my literacy, I
have come to recognize a few times when I could have learned more and failed to do so.
The two people who I look up to more than anything, my parents, are the greatest
sponsors of my literacy. Ever since I was a baby there were plenty of books around my house
for me to read. Books may not seem important for children to have who cannot yet read, but just
looking at the words repeatedly without knowing what they mean still helps to generate the
beginning stages of literacy in a small childs mind. Ever since I was a little girl, I loved books.
One of my favorite activities was to go sit alone in my house with a pile of books, and just go
through them for hours. If my parents had not made these books accessible to me at such a
young age my passion for books then and now would most likely not be the same. As I continued
to grow and began to learn how to read in kindergarten and first grade, my parents would sit
down with me every night and help me read the books that I had brought home from school.
They were extremely patient with me and never made me feel bad or as though I was a burden
when I needed help with my reading. A strong support system is very important when a person
is trying to become literate in a new way; it makes the process much easier. Not only did they
help me with my reading, but also with my writing. I remember sitting on the living room floor
with my parents as they were teaching me to write my name. The overwhelming delight and
satisfaction we all had when I wrote my name completely by myself was one of the best feelings
I have ever experienced, we were all so proud.
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Not only did my parents help me with educational literacys, but they also helped me
with social literacys; which I am still continuing to learn today. Manners and being polite were
always expected in my household growing up. I would very much consider this literacy because
it affects the way we communicate with other people. These social literacys started with the
simple phrases such as yes sir and no maam, please and thank you and became more
advanced, such as speaking up and talking loud enough when giving a response to a question
someone had asked me. My parents are still reminding me of social literacy now as it pertains to
my changing and growing world. For instance, they will sometimes coach me on how to speak
during a job interview or remind me how important it is to talk with my professors if something
is wrong. These are great thoughts for me to keep in mind as I become more socially interactive
with older people of a higher status than myself. These skills that my parents have taught me
prove that literacy does not have to be only written, but it also has the ability to be verbal.
Teachers in my community have also taught me a great deal towards my literacy. Of
course there were always an abundance of books in every school that I attended, but what I have
learned about computers throughout my years of schooling has been extreme. I have had a
computer at my house since I was a small child, but my parents could not teach me how to do
everything on it that my teachers have been able to show me. In fact, I usually have to help my
parents when it comes to computers because it is not a technology that they grew up becoming
literate towards. From elementary school all the way through high school I was forced to take
computer classes. I actually disliked these classes very much because I am not too computer
savvy. However, I now realize that if I was not made to take those computer classes, then I
would have no idea how to do anything at all on computers; and that would be detrimental to my
being able to function adequately in college right now because almost everything in college
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revolves around computers. Also, once I make it to the workforce computers will still be
extremely prominent in my everyday activities. My teachers were preparing me for one of the
greatest literacys in my life before I even realized what they were doing.
Church has also been an important part of my life from the time I was born. The teachers
at my church, who helped me to understand my religion and faith at Sunday school every week,
have helped a great deal to make God so special to me throughout my life. Without their
willingness to help me understand the Bible, my literacy of it would not be as great as it is today.
Becoming literate about the word of God and everything that he stands for has truly been a
blessing to me, and I am so thankful to all the parent volunteer teachers at my church who spent
that one hour a week teaching me about the most important part of who I am. Although I have
learned about the Bible and God for most of my life, I still feel as though my faith is something
that can never discontinue evolving and becoming stronger. Becoming more literate towards my
faith, I believe, is something that I will continue for the rest of my life. I feel secure in my faith
and with what I know about it, but when it comes to something so great, there is always more to
be learned and understood. I will rely on my sponsors of faith forever to become more literate
towards God.
People who have been my sponsors in acquiring new literacys have not always been
older than me. In fact, three children who are considerably younger than me have taught me a
great deal about being literate. Elena, Mark, and Paul are their names and they are six, five, and
three years old now. I began babysitting for these children about three years ago and realized
that not only do they speak English, but they can also speak Portuguese and Spanish. And Elena,
the six year old is in a school that is teaching her to learn French. It was amazing to me that
these children could learn so many languages at such a young age. I know that languages are
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easier to learn when people are younger, but I had never seen that theory being used to such a
great degree. I realized that these children had great people in their lives who were teaching
them to become extremely literate in many different cultures, so they would have more
opportunities in the future. I now know that their family members and teachers who are giving
them such a huge opportunity are their sponsors, and these children actually became my
sponsors. When I would babysit them they would teach me new words in all the languages that
they knew and I found it to be a very educational experience. I learned a considerable amount
from listening to them talk and read books that were in Portuguese, Spanish, and French. That
experience, looking back on it now, makes me see how one sponsor teaching a person can lead to
a new sponsor teaching someone else and then the chain continues and many people become
educated in all different ways.
As well as people and places, different events and activities can also lead a person to new
found literacy. When I began playing soccer in fourth grade I learned so many new phrases and
terms that I had never heard of before in my life. There were goal kicks and corner kicks and
midfield and forwards and defenders. At first it seemed very overwhelming because I really had
no idea what my coaches were trying to say to me when they used all of that terminology.
Jumping into new situations and roles, completely different from anything you have formerly
experienced can be exhausting and daunting. Even though my experience was just with soccer, I
can relate and somewhat understand how Dwayne Lowery felt in Sponsors ofLiteracy when
he had to learn all new business tactics and procedures that he had never been accustomed to
before. However, unlikeLowery; who was forced to retire because he could not keep up with all
the literacy changes, I continued with soccer and it did not take long before I knew what all the
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names meant and really began to enjoy playing the game. There are many events that take place
and cause a person to become literate in a way they never imagined.
Although most of my sponsors have taught me how to be more literate than I ever even
noticed, there have been a few times in my life when literacy has been withheld from me. The
first time was learning how to speak a foreign language fluently. The first time I took a foreign
language class was in sixth grade and it was for only one semester. Then I continued to take
Spanish classes from seventh grade through eleventh grade; however, I was never able to grasp
all the information as well as I wanted to, especially when it came to the upper level classes in
high school. If I would have been exposed to Spanish in elementary school, or possibly even
before that, I would have had a much easier time learning the language. More schools and
parents need to start teaching their children how to read, write, and speak in another language
before they enter elementary school. This would be extremely useful in todays world where it is
much easier to be successful if you are bilingual. While I did eventually get a foreign language
education, I feel as though it was not adequate because I was not given the education soon
enough.
Learning how to play and read music is another literacy that was suppressed in my life.
However, I have no one to blame for that except myself. I believe that a person is the greatest
suppressor of literacy to themselves if they are not willing to learn. And that is exactly what
happened to me. My parents paid for me to go to band camp for a week over the summer when I
was in elementary school and after one day of being at the camp I refused to go back. Playing
the flute was a great deal harder than I thought it was going to be, so I got frustrated the first day
and quit. After that I never tried to play another instrument again, even when my parents asked
me if I wanted to try. Now that I am older, I wish that I could play an instrument because it
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seems like such an uplifting experience. I was an extremely foolish sponsor to myself that time;
I missed out on learning a literacy that could have been very beneficial to me now and in the
future.
Literacy is something that I will no longer try to take advantage of as I progress and
continue to learn even more. Now that I have come to recognize all the sponsors who have
played a major role in shaping my literate life, I am greatly looking forward to meeting new
sponsors and hopefully becoming a sponsor myself for people some day. The people, places,
resources, and events that have happened during my life are much greater than what can be seen
from just the surface. All these connections have given me the understanding and intelligence
that I have today.