Sehaye 1

Luwam Sehaye

Professor Jan Rieman

English 1103

September 14, 2010

Self-assessment: I feel like my paper is alright but I could go into some topics further. I also feel

likes it is missing something but not sure what. My paper’s strength is probably that it is simple

and not hard to keep reading. My weakness is probably that it is not thorough or very organized.

I would have spent more time tying up the end of my paper so it has a stronger finish. I

surprisingly got a lot of positive feedback. My peers advised me to organize my paragraphs by

starting a new paragraph once I have completed a thought.

My Many Sponsors of Literacy

The definition for Sponsors of Literacy is “any agents, local or distant, concrete or

abstract, who enable, support, teach, model, as well as recruit, regulate, suppress, or withhold

literacy-and gain advantage by it in some way” (Brandt 407). Until this assignment I had never

thought about how many people and places have shaped my ability and love for literacy.

Growing up as a child, I was blessed with many things including access to literacy. I loved

reading as a child, everything from Amelia Bedelia to Harry Potter. I was able to read baby

books by the time I was four, and was placed in the advanced reading groups after the first grade.

I had terrible penmanship, was awful at math, but could read at a level of a child two years older.

Reading was my strong point and I loved that.

My parents, even though they had just immigrated and did not have much, found a way to

enroll me into a small private school for the first grade. They would always tell me education is

the most valuable thing you can have, and would go out of their way to make sure I got the best I

could have. During grade school, we participated in the Book IT reading challenges where for
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every book you read you would receive some type of prize from the teacher’s treasure chest. I

remember kids with their noses stuck in books during break times, recess, and everywhere in-

between. This motivated me to read more and more. I had access to the school library as well as

my neighborhood library which were both just a five minute walk from home. My grandmother

would pick me and my sister up from school and we would head straight over to the library. I

remember how the kids section would always have some decoration theme like a rainforest filled

with stuffed animals you would find in the Amazon. I also had access to computers at the library,

school and at home starting at the young age of seven.

My favorite resources though were my family. All my cousins, uncles, aunts,

grandparents, lived in the same town no more than ten minutes apart. Most of the time after

school we would meet up at one of our houses and the kids would do homework and the adults

would have the traditional coffee ceremony. Being the youngest I received the most help. I felt

like that there was no question in the world I could ask my older cousins or uncles that they

couldn’t answer.

I think of my sponsors of literacy as all these things, my school, the local library, my

whole family, the Book It program, and my teachers. My school and teachers taught me

academic literacy, how to read, who Dr. Martin Luther King was, the history of the United

States, and so on. The library and Book It program gave me a different perspective since I was

reading children’s novels, how to use my imagination, be more visual, and paint a picture with

the words on a page. Lastly, my family had a huge impact on my abilities to learn. To me they

were like walking books. They helped me with almost every homework assignment until high

school, and would take all the time it took to explain whatever I didn’t understand. I also see my
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parents literally as sponsors of literacy because they have been paying for my education since I

was five even though it is a huge struggle.

I feel like I received all the tools I need to succeed and that it’s up to me whether I take

full advantage of them. I consider the access provided by my sponsors as more than adequate and

am thankful for that. From my viewpoint I have had access, and still do, to all literacies and feel

like there is not one I couldn’t get to or wish I had. To me it is more of do I want to have access

to a specific literacy and will I do the work to get it.

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Works Cited

Brandt, Deborah. “Sponsors of Literacy.” Writing about Writing: A College Reader. Eds. Wardle

and Downs. Boston: Bedford, 2011. 406-26. Print.