Brandt Reading Log

Michael DeSantis
Ms. Agosta
UWRT005
January 18 2017
1. a) The invention of the steam press resulted in the deskilling of print apprentices and
brought an end to a particular form of literacy sponsorship and a decline in literate
potential.
b) This story shows that the sources of literacy were dynamic. The reading and writing
skills of print apprentices were the product of an economical situation.
c) Brandt told it to demonstrate that the intention of steam press had not only positive
but also negative effect on the literacy and literacy learning.

2. a) The term economies in this context can mean the new economic trends and
achievements, such as, for example, the development of market economy with the
important role of competitiveness, marketing, the significance of information and new
technologies.
b) Brandt is getting to the growing importance of literacy. More and more people were
obtaining writing and reading skills to get more financial and social benefits.
c) I think financial literacy is one of the most useful kinds of literacy which can help to
survive current American economy. The US needs its illiteracies to serve the needs of the
people who suffer from poverty and social inequality. Education should be a social
equalizer.

3. a) The term sponsor is used in the field of economy to describe someone who invests
money in some business. Also, a sponsor is a person who donates money to charity or
any other projects. Money investments make someone or something a sponsor.
b) According to Brandt, sponsors enable, support, teach, or model, as well as recruit,
regulate, suppress or withhold (2). In my examples, sponsors enable the realization of
the projects by investing money. Nevertheless, they can also perform other functions, for
instance, regulate and control the work. The sponsors do it to receive financial profit or
bring some benefit to the society or other people.
c) Brandts definition of sponsors is very unusual. The question is what are abstract
agents and what benefits can they have from being sponsors?

4. Brandt believes that the relationship between a sponsor and a sponsored is not
reciprocal. The sponsor always hold more resources and, as a result, more power.
Therefore, literacy has always been a way to gain more power in the society. People from
lower social classes struggled to come into contact with the sponsors and learn how to
write and read: Clients traded their labor and deference for access to opportunities for
themselves or their children and for leverage needed to improve their social standing
(4). Nowadays, this power dynamic still persists. The results of national test of reading
 Example
and writing performance reveal the connections between the distribution of power in the
society and the level of literacy. Wealthy people tend to display higher frequency of
contacts with the sponsors than poor people who have less consistent, less politically
secured access to literacy sponsors -- especially to the ones that can grease their way to
academic and economic success (6).

5. Raymond Branchs parents are white middle-class Americans which means that they
have good access to the sponsors of literacy. Raymonds father is a professor which
means that he might have encouraged his son to study. Raymond obtained the access to
new technologies in the very early age. He received computer literacy which is of high
demand in the modern society.
Dora and her family belongs the people of color which hampered her access to the
sponsors of literacy. Her family faced some financial difficulties. Besides, it was not easy
for her to get the materials which can help her to learn Spanish. In addition, she did not
have such amount of access to the modern technologies as Raymond had. Also, Dora
had few teachers, while Raymond spent much time communicating with those who
shared their knowledge of programming and computers with him.