Literacy Sponsorship

Paxton Giem

North Central Michigan College

DUE DATE 9/29/21

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The person that first introduced me to reading and writing was my mom. Earlier in her

career, she had taught Language Arts at Grayling High School so she loved to read and she

passed it down to me. I remember sitting on the couch reading small, easy, books like Mr. Brown

Can Moo, and Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day with her. This

relates to a quote Deborah Brant said in one of her articles “Most of the time, however, literacy

takes its shape from the interest of its sponsor” (Brandt 168). I completely agree with this

because I read a lot of books that my mom picked out for me. Especially around the holidays

when we got our special Christmas books out, I loved to grab a bunch of blankets and spend the

whole afternoon reading through them. This started me off with positive experiences to begin my

reading and writing career.

A couple of years later when my reading skills had advanced, I started to read chapter

books and that’s when I found the Magic Tree House series. I remember sitting on my bed and

reading every Magic Tree House that my family owned and loving all the action and adventures

that took place in them. Fast forward to 3rd grade, I found the Diary of a Wimpy Kid series and

absolutely loved it. It was relatable and super funny, as well as super easy to read. Even to this

day, I get excited when Jeff Kinney releases a new book for the series. As my reading skills

continued to progress, I found myself wanting to read harder and more action-packed books and

The Lightning Thief filled that request perfectly. I got hooked on the series and read every book

that was in it. I remember staying up late and reading the books in my bed with a headlamp on.

Over time, my enjoyment for reading slowly died. Once I finished The Lightning Thief

series I never really got interested in any other books. In Middle School, once we started to read

books for assignments, reading became more of a task or chore rather than me just doing it for

fun. It wasn't until seventh grade when I found The Secret Zoo series that I began to enjoy
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reading again. My favorite thing was to come up after I finished all my school work and sit in

my bed and read until I was too tired to keep reading. The reason I started to enjoy reading again

was that in Mrs. McGeorge’s class we were actually able to pick our own book for whatever

reading/writing assignment we were doing that week. I feel like if we were forced to read a

certain book then I wouldn’t have chosen to read for fun anymore. In my opinion, that's one of

the great things about reading, there are so many options and topics out there about what you can

read that there is no limit, but when you're forced to read something that you're not interested in

it takes all the fun out of reading. I also felt like I learned better when I was able to read the

books that I was interested in because I related to it more and I enjoyed it more which overall

helped me remember more about the book.

Now that I'm in high school, I've done multiple book reports, and I've read lots of books

for assignments for English classes, none of which I have been able to choose myself.

Sometimes teachers give you an option from their choice of books but even with that, it takes the

fun out of reading because it's never on a topic that I'm interested in. This also carried into

writing as far as the book reports go. I felt like because I didn't get to choose what book I read, I

wasn't able to connect to the book as well as I would have if I was reading about a topic that I

was interested in. When reading a topic that you're interested in it's easy to find relatable things

and that definitely helps out in the writing process. When you're reading a book that you're not

interested in you spend more time trying to figure out what it's actually about instead of paying

attention to it and getting the key points from the reading. I felt like this limited my writing

ability because I wasn't able to express all my ideas and thoughts about a book because I couldn't

relate to it with my own life. For example, when we were reading Sponsors of Literacy, the piece

of the article that stuck with me most was when Brandt said " I am sure that sponsors play even
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more influential roles at the scenes of literacy learning and use than this essay has

explored”(Brant, 1991, 183). It stuck out to me because when I was younger my mom was

always reading with me and teaching me how to read new books. As I've gotten older I haven't

read nearly as much as I used to and it just doesn't interest me like it once did. I think that's

because I have more of my own opinions now and I'm not as influenced by my mom as I used to

be. This is the main reason that I stopped reading and writing for fun at home. It turned into more

of a homework assignment than something that I would actually enjoy doing when I got home.

Now when I think of reading, I think of long hard nights of writing down quotes so that I won't

fail my English class. If teachers’ main concerns were just to make sure that we continue to read

and always improve at it, then they should let us choose our own books. I understand that there

are certain books that we have to read because of the course content but if they wanted us to get

better at reading they wouldn’t force us to read books that they picked out. Now when I try to

pick up a new book and read it, I get easily distracted because I’ve lost my earlier interest in

reading.

In conclusion, my mom started to get me interested in reading and writing at an early

age, and I enjoyed the books she read to me. As I got older my passion for reading and writing

increased until about 6th grade. Unfortunately, school ruined reading for me and took away all

the fun that it gave me by making it more of a chore. Hopefully, I will be able to get back into

reading and continue to do it for fun in my spare time.

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References

Brandt, D. “Sponsors of Literacy.” College Composition and Communication, vol. 49, no. 2,

May 1998, pp.165-185