Claire Hinds

Profesor Agosta

UWRT 1101-005

18 January 2017

Brandt Reading Log

1. Brandts first paragraph narrates the changes of a workplace, a place of learning, at

a specific time and in a specific type of work.
1. Summarize these changes in 25 words or less.
2. What does this story show us about literacy?
3. Why did Brandt tell it?
A: In the first paragraph, Brandt talks about how the workplace changes. She starts by saying that
the print shops is where everyone worked and then by the mid-nineteenth century, those shops
turned to steam press factories. In this story, it shows us that literacy is lost when the workplace
changes because without the print shops the workers are losing their literacy and becoming
deskilled. Pre-steam press, the workers had access to the most basic aspects of literacy. The
machines took the place of the people once the print shops were gone. Brandt told this story
because it is a good example of how people became literate and what the cause was of the
decrease in literacy.

2. Of these changes in economies, Brandt notes on p. 1, para. 2, As ordinary citizens

have been compelled into these economies, their reading and writing skills have grown
sharply more central to the everyday trade of information and goods as well as to the pursuit
of education, employment, civil rights, and status.
1. When you think of the term economies, what comes to mind?
2. What is Brandt getting to here about the connection between economies and
literacy?
3. Based on current American economy, what needs do we require our
literacies to serve? What kinds of literacies should people gain to survive our current
economy?
A: When I think of the word economies, I think of how money runs through a community. I also think
of the wealth and resources of an area. When Brandt talks about the connection between economies
and literacy she thinks that being involved with the economy will help you learn new things and
become literate in things helping the community. In our current economy, we need people to be
literate in english for news, money for banking, and business for handling the deals with other
economies. Everyone should become literate in finance to survive our current economy so you can
rely on yourself to handle your money.

3. On p. 2, para. 2., Brandt offers her approach to understanding how individual

development has ties to an economic development. The approach is through what I call
sponsors of literacy. Sponsorsare any agents, local or distant, concrete or abstract, who
enable, support, teach, or model, as well as recruit, regulate, suppress, or withhold literacy
and gain advantage by it in some way.
 1. Lets think about the term sponsor for a minute. List a couple ways or places
youve heard this term used. What makes someone or thing a sponsor?
2. Now look back over her description of sponsors and pull out the actions that
she says they do. Take an example or two from your listwhat actions did they do for
the sponsored (ex. model, suppress)? What advantage did they receive in return?
3. Note any questions or concerns with Brandts definition of a sponsor here.
A: I have heard the term sponsor many times when dealing with fundraisers or events. Usually the
sponsor is someone who helps make the event happen by donating money to the program. To be a
sponsor, you have to have something and give it to another in order to help them. Brandt is saying
that a sponsor is someone who enables or teaches literacy to others while gaining advantage in
some way. The sponsors I have witnessed gave money to an event and in return they got
recognition of their company through the event. The advantage sponsors of literacy get in return is
that others are educated and they get to spread the world of literacy to more people. I agree with
Brandts definition of literacy.

4. Based on Brandts further discussion of sponsorship from pp. 3-5, who does she
believes holds more power in the relationship (sponsor/sponsored)? Why? How does this
power dynamic shape literacy development? Use at least 2 quotes and/or references to the
text to support your answers.
A: I think that Brandt believes the sponsors are more powerful. As said in this quote, Usually richer,
more knowledgeable, and more entrenched than the sponsored, sponsors nevertheless enter a
reciprocal relationship with those they underwrite it is obvious that she thinks the sponsor is more
important. She says that the sponsor can get paid back by credit of association. Which means that if
the sponsored does something important one day, the original sponsor will get credit for being the
one that taught them. The relationship between the two are important because the sponsor is a good
person for the sponsored to look up too and learn from. They usually form a special bond and have a
big impact on each other's life.

5. At the middle of page 6, Brandt begins a section about Sponsorship and Access. In
this section, Brandt looks closely at access to sponsors, materials, and opportunities for
learning. She notes that literacy development is very complicated, and we cant look to one
thing (location, socioeconomic status, culture, family background) as the reasoning behind
different literacy developments. To complicate our ideas, Brandt offers us two stories of
people who are the same age and live in the same town: Raymond Branch and Dora Lopez.
In her telling of their literacy experiences, she aims to show the rich layers of opportunity,
access, sponsors, motivations, needs, culture, support, and interests that inevitably
shape literacy learning. Read through page 9, and keep notes for Raymond and Dora,
tracking anything that you feel shaped their literacy experiences.
Raymond: father was a professor.
Raymond: European-American male
Raymond: fooled around with the computer in first grade.
Raymond: got a computer for Christmas when he was twelve.
Raymond: frequently visited the computer hardware and software store to develop his computer
programing skills.
Raymond: graduated from a university and was a successful freelance writer of software and
software documentation.
Dora: Mexican-American female
Dora: Grandparents worked as farm laborers.
Dora: father worked as a shipping and receiving clerk and mother worked part-time at the bookstore.
Dora: minority in her town.
Dora: family had to drive 70 miles to get groceries and get a spanish-language newspaper.
Dora: taught herself to read and write in Spanish as an adolescent.
Dora: exposed to computers for the first time at the age of thirteen.
Dora: was admitted to the same university as Raymond but transferred to a technical college later.
Dora: worked for a cleaning company.