Sponsors of Literacy

I find it very interesting how Deborah Brandt takes the term literacy and applies it to so many different types of knowledge.  The traditional thought is that literacy is the ability to be able to read and write, but in “Sponsors of Literacy” Brandt opens literacy up to an array of different categories such as, “computer literacy” or “religious literacy”.

My primary literacy sponsors would most definitely be my family and my school. My family, specifically referring to my parents, has always been my main sponsor in terms of increasing my literacy in a multitude of areas.  My parents have always been the ones who have stressed the importance of traditional literacy and they have played a huge role in my literacy in categories such as academics, religious, civic, and technology.  My parents taught me how important learning and trying in school was which increased my academic literacy.  They took me to church and put me through Sunday school classes so that I would have a relationship with the Lord and understand my religion. They also harped on manners and the way in which people should be treated, which I would consider to fall under civic literacy.  Technology would probably be the thing that my parents and I have had a mutual teacher-learner with, and I would say we are still increasing each other’s technological literacy whereas most of the other influences have ceased.  Family as a sponsor is something that I believe allows for a large amount of accessibility to knowledge.  My parents especially made themselves and the resources that they provided extremely accessible to me.

My school has also been a huge sponsor for my academic and technological literacy.  I attended school in a mainly upper-middle class society where we had constant endless access to materials and resources to improve literacy.  In my school there was a library that was very accessible along with computers that were in most of the classrooms and in the library as well.  I would say I was lucky to have the amount of access that I did to learn about different literacies.  I know that the academic and technological literacy that I have gained is largely due to the great amount of access that my school as a sponsor had to offer.

There are few literacies that I can think of that I did not have access to growing up but some that I would have liked to have more knowledge about are specifically academic literacy in terms of foreign language or sign language. Also I would like to have more mechanical literacy, and by that I mean I would like to be more mechanically savvy with electronics and cars and things that I use constantly. That way I would be better equipped to fix things and build things myself.