Literacy

Sponsors &
Literacy and
Identity
Dr. Will Kurlinkus
What is a
“sponsor of
literacy?”
(Deborah
Brandt)
How did your
parents or other
adults in your life
encourage or
discipline you into
getting better
grades? What is
“normal” literacy
sponsorship?
What are some
key takeaways of
Sara Webb
Sunderhaus’s
piece on
Appalachian
Literacy?
A Family Affair: Competing Sponsors of
Literacy in Appalachian Students’
Lives—Sara Webb-Sunderhaus
• Sponsors of Literacy: “any agents, local or distant, concrete or abstract, who enable,
support, teach, and model, as well as recruit, regulate, suppress, or withhold, literacy—and
gain advantage by it in some way…. older relatives, teachers, religious leaders, supervisors,
military officers, librarians, friends, editors, influential authors” (19).
• But also commercial entities, such as companies who award prizes in a jingle-
writing contest and restaurants who offer gift certificates to children who read a
designated number of books, as well as institutions, such as the African-American
church.
• Inhibitors of literacy: “Literacy, particularly academic literacy, became a dangerous
force, one that could distance students from family members and loved ones” (15).
Often attached to outside life circumstances (health, children, deaths in the family,
finances)
• “So much depends on my husband. Soon to be ex-husband. At first he was very
supportive. And then his insecurities. . . [trailing off]. That’s why we’re getting a divorce.
I’ll just tell you: he’s got a prescription drug abuse problem. He’s buying them from the
street. “

• Literacy and Identity: “literacy beliefs and practices were part and parcel of the students’
performance of identity, representing an important stage on which their Appalachian-
ness—or non-Appalachian-ness, in some cases—was portrayed” (6)
• Michael Maloney: “[T]here’s a deep conflict between the values in school and the
values at home [...] Appalachians expect relationships to be personal; they aren’t
comfortable with functional relationships” (34).
Literacy & Identity:
How much school is
too much school? How
much school is not
enough school? Which
majors are you allowed
to pursue? Which
careers?
Literacy and Identity
• How do stereotypes about a
community enhance or inhibit
infrastructural literacy change?
• “The culture in Appalachia harms
the children almost beyond
repair. Their parents are screwed
up. Kids get married at 16 or 17,
their parents are drunks. . . . I
don’t want to rebuild the
infrastructure of Appalachia. I
want to leave it pristine, it’s
beautiful” (Bill O’Reilly).
 Corporate
Sponsorship
of Literacy
Blank Slate—Silas
Hansen

• Literacy narratives, like much good

autobiographies, are often about transition
points. How we learn to become new selves,
new ways of knowing, how the people around
us support or hinder that.
• Silas as a literacy sponsor for his family—
learning to understand a new daughter and
sister a new friend
• The act of choosing a name as an act of
composition—writing an identity, a future,
your child’s or your own.