McCarthy "A Stranger in Strange Lands" p.261 Discussion q.6

As was mentioned earlier in the article, Dave wrote depending on what the teacher wants. I feel like that's how my writing has also been. In English it was more about getting the thesis down and having proper grammar and spelling. For science papers it was more about the content. So far I have different expectations in each class. In my U.S. class I cannot at any cost write in first person. In this class, that's not such a problem. In my lifespan in development class, I have to write a paper that is basically just research, but it's broken up into categories: literary review, are findings for our pecha kucha's, our cross cultural findings, etc. I guess if anything, McCarthy kind of showed me to be more conscious of the quality, quantity, relation, and manner of my papers.

Branick p.263 discussion q.1

I never thought of coaches as a discourse community, but I never not thought of them that way either. They weren't the top of my list for discourse communities. It was very interesting to see how he put coaches into the 5 specific qualities of being an effective coach.  

Marro- Applying & Exploring (p.313 q.2)

After reading Marro's paper, it was obvious that they value following rules and looking good. They had to chart when and how often they'd work out. It also seemed like they had a strong sense of community, like they were tight-knit.

Commented on Haleigh Hurst.

Kain and Wardle discussion question 1 (p.283)

Activity systems are a group that work together to achieve the same goal.
 Examples include:
Military- different people, from different backgrounds come together to protect their nation, people and land.
Teachers- their main goal is to educate, making future generations ready to accomplish tasks they may face.
Students- different people all come together to learn, to eventually do the job they want to do.

Jerry Trejo
Wallace Casper

Linnea Skoog
10-13-14
Mirabelli
ZuZu Feder


After reading this piece by Mirabelli, do you think that restaurants, waiters/waitresses, cooks, etc, have their own lingo, or ways in which they communicate? Are there other places/jobs that have their own form of communicating?

Rhetorical Analysis of "Sponsors of Literacy" by Deborah Brandt

Linnea Skoog

10-6-14

Rhetorical Analysis

Writ. 101

ZuZu Feder

Rhetorical Analysis of “Sponsors of Literacy” by Deborah Brandt

Deborah Brandt is a professor in the English department at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. She has written several books on literacy, as well as scholarly research articles about literacy (Brandt p.43). In 1998, her prompt Sponsors of Literacy was featured in a periodical for other scholars and educators called College Composition and Communication (CCC). “CCC is a committee of scholars and teachers aimed at giving students the opportunity to receive the education and literacy they deserve” (ncte.org). Considering that this article appeared in a CCC publication, Brandt's intended audience was other scholars and teachers. She was writing this to bring the attention to the learning of the students. Moreover, where they began learning and who taught them. Deborah Brandt can relate to this essay in the fact that she not only see's people either excelling with their literacy or struggling with their literacy, but as well as the reminder of her literacy background.

Another audience this prompt seems to have been aimed at was students. Most likely college students who were doing an analysis on the background of their literacy, or even the literacy of their classmates and peers. Much like our class, they could have read this essay and conversed about how much positive impact their parents had on their reading and writing, as well as the negative impact that was poured upon them from negative literacy sponsors.

Deborah Brandt's article “Sponsors of Literacy” touches on the basis of our literacy. Where we began to read and write and how that has shaped us now. In the article, Brandt specifically gives examples of two people and their literacy backgrounds. Raymond Branch and Dora Lopez come from different walks of life. One of Raymond's literacy sponsors was the technology around him. As a young child “he enjoyed fooling around with 'real users' at his father's science lab” (Brandt p.49). Dora, though she had a Latino background, knew nothing about the Spanish language, thus she took it upon herself to learn. She taught herself to read and write in Spanish. From these examples, not only does Brandt show that technology and books can be a a literary sponsor, but also the people with whom we interact. Raymond experienced his literacy through exploring technology, though it wasn't something he just 'decided upon' one day. Being that his dad was into science, and so, around technology a lot, Raymond got a knack for technology as well. Dora, though English speaking, experienced her Spanish literacy on her own through books she had obtained and read. Though Dora did 'decide' to learn Spanish on her own, she was never discouraged by her family. In fact, she would often get Spanish books form the library her mother worked at.

Brandt shows us that people are also our literary sponsors by making us think about how and when we learned to read. From this we can conclude that for most of us, our parents were huge literary sponsors, as well as siblings, babysitters, pre-schools, and even “learning” shows. Our parents would teach us our ABC's and patiently read to us our favorite books over and over again. While our siblings would impatiently correct our words and grammar. Our babysitter and preschool teachers would give us little impromptu lessons that would help us improve our reading and writing. These were all positive literacy sponsors. They encouraged us to learn and keep learning new things. They would help us as well. Within thinking about our positive literacy sponsors, one is prompted to think about the “negative” literacy sponsors, too. These negative literacy sponsors could range from anyone who talks over you when you're talking to a teacher who told you to stop writing a certain way. Often, it would be someone who either didn't help you to improve your reading and writing or someone who practically told you to throw everything you already know about reading and writing out the window and start doing things their way. Or both. Sometimes, it would be that one teacher who would favor certain students. They were too focused on their “favorites” succeeding that they “forgot” what being a teacher meant.

I think Brandt's bigger argument here is that no matter where you came from, and what your literacy sponsors were, good or bad, there's always a chance to start fresh and learn what you want to know. I also think that what she's saying is that by the time people get to the college level, they either don't care how something is written or supposed to be written, or they don't know. They don't know because all everyone does these days is use text talk and acronyms. They don't use real words or grammar. They're not sure which 'there' to use when they want to go over 'there' or to 'their' house. They're not sure when to use a semi colon or a comma. They start every sentence with 'and,' 'because,' and 'but.' They don't care because they don't know. If they were expected to actually do work to improve themselves, then maybe they would care a little bit more, thus picking up and understanding what's expected of them.

I believe Brandt's exigence was probably the fact that there are so many people who don't know the basics of constructing a paper. Instead of getting the proper help they need to get to the stage of constructing a “good” paper, they failed and possibly don't have the motivation to continue. Another reason she most likely wrote this was to bring it to the attention of fellow scholars and teachers. It's not like she was the only one who noticed. If she could get so many more teachers involved, they would really be able to help people and keep writing what it is, before it gets any worse. She probably also wrote this to reflect on her literacy sponsors. To understand that not everybody has the same opportunities growing up. Some people are much more fortunate and motivated. Other just aren't as lucky.

In conclusion, what Brandt is saying in the article is that people learn differently. Not everyone will learn the same way. With this, their literacy journey has been different. They have different reading levels than their peers, they write differently, they may or may not have terrible grammar. Everyone's literacy background is different. She is also telling us that no matter how well we think our literacy is now, there's always room for improvement, in one way or another. Even if it's as little as just sitting down and reading a new book.

Works Cited:

-Brandt, Deborah. "Sponsors of Literacy." Writing About Writing. 2nd ed. Boston: Bedford/St.Martins, 2014. 43-60. Print.

-Yancey, Kathleen Blake, ed. College Composition and Communication  1998. Print.

http://www.ncte.org/cccc/ccc.