Brandt's Literacy Sponsor

       I think Brandt is a master of writing, who can take a topic and discuss it nine ways from sunday. When writing on literacy sponsorship,she indicates that she believes our influences in literacy are strongly influenced from our past. Such as what we read when we were young, comics, text books,etc.She also suggests that we were influenced by things such as t.v,radio, anything in our past.
      
        In the biography of Malcom X and on Sherman Alexie, I think Brandt's theories are quite valid. In both these articles the people in them are describing these as influences in their own lives. Malcom X described how he used the dictionary, the prison library. He told how Mr.Muhammad greatly influenced his life. Sherman Alexie talked about how his father so loved books, so he decided he would love them to. He spoke about how he loved reading comic books and how he would read anything with paragraphs or words.

        I think Brandt's point on literacy access in relation to economic, social and ethinic background has validity but by no means is the rule. She leans toward the more you have, the better you will be. I think Branch and Lopez were equally successful despite that they came from entirely different backgrounds. I can cite 3 examples in my immediate family who started at the bottom of the pile, including literacy, and ended up toward the top in what they decided to do. I will just cite my father, 1 of 11 kids. 8th grade education. In his mid 20's, working as a carpenter, he started studing old blueprints at night after working all day. Long story short, he went on to being the top man on many multi-million dollar buildings in his lifetime. He retired in the mid ninties after his last project, the Bio-Science Building on MSU campus.

        I think wealth and success is in the dreams of the individual.