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Lauren Whitley

Professor Jan Rieman

ENGL 1103

April 29, 2011

Literate Lauren

While growing up, I never owned a single videogame, gaming system, Gameboy, PSP,

etc. I never even owned a Chia Pet. Instead of having access to these types of activities, I was

told to either use my imagination or read books to keep myself occupied. Whenever I went over

to spend the night at a friend’s house, I always coveted their “game rooms” stocked from floor to

ceiling with mesmerizing gadgets that had never passed through the front door of my own home,

and probably never would. I watched on the sidelines as my friends played “Mario Brothers” or

“Pokemon”; all the games that were “cool” or “fun” back then. Growing up, I never understood

why my mother seemed to punish me by only giving me the option of using my imagination or

reading books to occupy my time, but looking back now, I thank her for doing so.

When the term literacy is used, it is often associated simply with the ability to read or

write; however, literacy refers to fluency in any area. A person can have a reading or writing

literacy, an academic literacy, an electronic literacy, or even an athletic literacy. Deborah Brandt

discusses these ideas of the various types of literacy’s in her essay “Sponsors of Literacy”.

Within this essay she introduces the idea that each person gains access to different literacy’s

through what she calls “sponsors”. Sponsors of Literacy, according to Brandt, are “any agents,

local or distant, concrete or abstract, who enable, support, teach, model” or even “recruit,

regulate, suppress, or withhold literacy-and gain advantage by it in some way” (Brandt, 407). I

consider myself literate in many areas, ranging from academia to religion, and have multiple

“sponsors” who led to me to becoming so.

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The most important literacy I have acquired is that of academia, and I credit my mother

as being the primary sponsor for this specific literacy. Her devotion to helping me learn to read,

promoting the use of my imagination, and inspiring my passion for reading, has instilled

multiple, positive academic qualities in me. Constantly being on a books and imagination only

“diet” sparked a curiosity within me that is still existent to this day. Each addition book I read or

each activity I created in the world of my imagination was a new experience waiting for me to

dive into. Each new experience then became an opportunity for me to learn and grow. This

infatuation with reading and using my imagination led me to my love of learning, which has thus

led me to great success in my academic years. I looked forward to going to school every day and

therefore walked into each classroom with an enthusiasm I seldom saw in my peers. To me,

learning was fun; it was something I wanted to do, not something I had to.

A second literacy I was instilled with at a young age was a musical literacy; my mother is

not only an academic sponsor of mine, she is a musical sponsor as well. Almost every day that I

walked into my house, I could hear a piano playing or my mother singing. My mother’s passion

for music rubbed off on me at the age of seven. She began teaching me the principal lessons in

playing the piano: how to find “Middle C” and then moving my way outward to learn the other

notes, musical terms such as ritardando (slowing down) or accelerando (speeding up), a sense of

rhythm, and most importantly, how to not memorize music, but actually read it. Once I learned

how to play, I couldn’t stop playing and I did so for years. I was a music teacher’s daughter and

therefore, a music lover as well. This love of music, similar to my love of reading, went outside

the realm of my home; I was able to use this literacy while at church too.

I have attended Mulberry Presbyterian Church since I was a toddler, and it was at

Mulberry that I further expanded my musical literacy. I attended Sunday school every Sunday

morning, participated in almost every church activity, and was also an avid participant of the
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children’s and youth choirs. I remember sitting in the pews at a young age, singing the

“Doxology” without knowing the true meaning of the words. I remember attempting to sing the

hymns that were being played during the service. Most importantly, I remember standing in the

front of my church at the age of six years old singing (or rather screaming) “Jesus Loves Me” to

my congregation. It was at church that I gained my real passion for playing the piano, as well as

my passion for singing, and it was at church that I further developed my musical literacy.

Mulberry Presbyterian was not only an additional musical sponsor of literacy, it was a

religious sponsor as well. It was at church that I learned how to read the Bible, how to say the

Lord’s Prayer, participated in and learned about Communion, and most importantly, discovered

what being a Christian really meant. My family was avid church-goers and church participants;

my father was the head of numerous committees, co-led the youth group, participated as an Elder

for the congregations Session, and assisted with almost every church function. My mother was

also the head of various committees, led the youth choir, and eventually became our church’s

Music Director, in which she became responsible for every choir, every hymn sung, and every

voice heard at Mulberry. My parents taught me that religion was an important aspect of a

person’s life, whether they practiced the same religion that I did, or a different one. They

instilled in me the knowledge that one should “Love thy neighbor as thy self” and “Do unto

others as you would have them do unto you”. At Mulberry Presbyterian church, I participated in

various outreach programs that demonstrated the concepts my parents taught me. Some of my

favorite programs being adopting a less-fortunate family every year for Christmas, sponsoring

the “Loaves and Fishes” food drive each Spring, and sponsoring the “Room in the Inn” project

that gave local homeless men, women and children a clean place to stay over the weekend. It was

at church that I developed my religious literacy, and it was my religious literacy that taught me to

not only care about myself, but the rest of the world around me.
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Many doors have been opened with my access to literacy’s such as academia, music and

religion; however, there were also doors that remained partially closed. This was seemingly due

to a lack of adequate sponsors for things outside of my given literacy’s. A literacy I wish I had

been given access to as a child was an athletic literacy. When I was younger, I was never given

the chance to participate in athletic activities; I never played in a Softball league, never took a

ballet class, and never even attempted Cheerleading. My father was an athlete during his youth,

participating in sports from football to baseball and everything in between; however, my mother

participated only in academic clubs and used music as her outlet. Whether my mother and her

passion for music and learning prompted my non-participation in sports or my father being

protective of “his girl”, I will never be certain. Luckily, at the beginning of eight grade, I was

given the opportunity to participate on my school’s soccer team. Although I was terrible (to say

the least), I learned important skills necessary to every child’s life: teamwork, responsibility, and

commitment. These qualities can be introduced to a child in a classroom or even at church, but

something truly only learned through participation in an athletic activity. I felt lucky to be given

the chance to finally participate in a sport, yet I wish I had been given more of these

opportunities prior to my eighth grade year.

Since I was a child, I have been given access to multiple types of literacy’s; academia,

music and religion being only a few. I can reference my parents, especially my mother, as highly

influential sponsors in my life, and I can also thank my church, teachers, and peers for being

sponsors of my various literacy’s. They have all provided access to my literacy in their own

unique ways, and although some have hindered literacy opportunities (such as my parents, with

sports), I am lucky to have been given the opportunities I have been. I am also lucky that I was

able to learn from the opportunities I hadn’t been given. The sponsors in my life are seemingly

ordinary people, ordinary places, and ordinary things, yet all resulted in extraordinary learning
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experiences. I have learned, grown, won, and lost some of life’s “battles”, but without these

influential “Sponsors of Literacy” in my life, I wouldn’t be the intelligent, well rounded,

responsible person (I think I am) today.

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Works Cited

Brandt, Deborah. “Sponsors of Literacy.” Writing about Writing: A College Reader. Wardle and
Downs. Boston: Bedford, 2011. 406-26.