Savannah Jackson Jackson 1

Samantha Gonzalez

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20 September 2023

My Sponsors of Literacy

I never liked those Scholastic Book Fairs from the very start. It was kindergarten, and our

class headed to the library during our regularly scheduled elective time. The electives rotated

frequently, so some days were filled with joy as I walked down the music and art hallways. Other

days I despised going to school, as our class filed like ants to the most dreaded room in the whole

school, the library. The shift from the lingering lemon-scented cleaning supplies to the thick,

fetid odor that swarmed around the entrance like a force field should have been enough to warn

everyone the library was a dungeon in disguise. But this one day, the smell was different. It was

more plasticky than fetid, but still thick. Although it wasn't as pleasant as the lemon, I preferred

it over the musty scent. Well, until I walked in.

The librarians had pushed the nasty bookshelves to the room's perimeter to make space

for the hundreds of tables. Posters, cut-outs of famous book characters, and bins filled with small

toys and fidgets covered the floor, transforming the room to a maze. All this chaos was for the

lonely two stands, barely filled with books. I watched as my peers rushed into the library like

fish freed from a net. But, instead of dashing to the lonely bookshelves, they would run to the

toys and the tables, where the "fun stuff" was. No matter how many times the teacher would

reiterate that it was a book fair, not a toy fair, the only kids who ever actually bought books were

ones whose parents forced them to. Too many of my friends were more excited about what

shaped eraser, scented pencil, colored fidget, or scratchy lenticular bookmarks they got. I'm not

saying I was the only one who raced to the book section. I never bought a book from the book
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fair. In fact, I never bought anything; no books, or toys, or school supplies, or snacks. I'm no

better than my peers who ran straight to the "good stuff." But at least I didn't fall under the

library’s spell, and believe that reading could be entertainment.

During my recent college studies, I read the article "Sponsors of Literacy" by Deborah

Brandt. Although quite long, one central idea stands: the wiser, more knowledgeable, and

experienced "sponsors" in our individual lives change, teach, and support the literacy we

encounter (166). These sponsors don't have to be specific people; they can be groups of people,

organizations, and institutions, but they typically receive some benefit, like payment or

acknowledgment (167). For me, this relationship, and the changes they would imply, went

unnoticed. It wasn't until I read Brandt’s article that I realized how many sponsors in my life

changed my literacy, and they changed it for the better. The most impactful sponsors in my life

changed my perspective on literacy entirely, and sophisticated it, unbeknownst to me.

My perspective on literacy was stubborn, no matter how many book fairs I went to. Once

I reached middle school, I realized how much harder it would be to avoid reading. We had to

check out books from the school library and read them independently, filling out the reading logs

as we went. I would lie on the reading logs, confidently writing that I read for 7 hours now and

then; "Sure," I thought, "That sounds reasonable." And in between the lies, I would make up

unbelievable excuses like, "My dog died," or "I was in the hospital," or, my personal favorite,

"My parents got divorced last night." I always got in trouble with the last one when my teachers

called home, but it was always worth the shot. I kept this up until the eighth grade, and at that
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point, I realized high school was right around the corner, and I would have to start reading,

whether I liked it or not. But there was one last book fair I couldn't escape; "One last one," I

would tell myself. I wondered in the book fair that year, aimlessly, avoiding eye contact with

every book, until one caught my eye. The emerald green cover with fancy gold lettering that read

The Land of Stories was calling me. I picked it up and read the back cover to discover it was a

twisted story on all the Grimm Brothers’ tales. It was fantasy, with witches, fairies, goblins and

trolls, and iconic characters like Cinderella, Goldilocks and the Three Bears, Mother Goose, and

so many more; it was perfect.

So I got it. I remember walking out of that library thinking, "Am I really all this excited

about a book? I'm not supposed to like reading. There’s no way this book is going to be good."

I wish I could go back in time and stop myself after the first sentence to tell myself, “Yes! That

book that you are nervously holding is the book that you have secretly been waiting for!” I read

that book repeatedly: at school after "finishing" my tests, at the dance studio between classes,

during car rides, and even at car dealerships, restaurants, and grocery stores. Soon after my

family caught on, my brother, who worked at Barnes and Noble, saw that there was more than

just one book. It was a whole series of six books! They were all I asked wanted for my birthday

and Christmas that year, and I got them all: the six books of the series, the ultimate guide, the

side stories written by a couple of the minor characters, and the treasury of the classical fairy

tales embedded in the story. For the remainder of middle and high school, these books took up

most of my free time, the first book especially. The front cover was ripped off by accident when I
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was reading one day, and the map tore, so I taped it back together. The edges of the pages were

curling and turning yellow; the spine was ripping, and that thick, fetid smell that I once hated

began to settle into my room and onto my singular lonely shelf.

Brandt's definition of a sponsor and their relationship with others parallels my experience

with The Land of Stories. The author of the series, Chris Colfer, ended my hatred of reading and

created a new mindset I continued to have for the rest of school. His series helped me find a new

interest and become an entirely new student in English classes. My English lessons were less

stressful because I didn't have to read SparkNotes on an entire book the night before a test

anymore. He provided me with a comfort book and something that when I say, "I don't know

what to read," I know I can always come back to.

At age two, my mother put me in a dance class. It started as just a little hobby outside of

school, but by the time I was in middle school, it became my whole world. At the time, I wanted

to be a professional dancer, whether I was a ballerina, an entertainer on a cruise, a backup dancer

for a music artist, or even the circus. I prioritized it over school most of the time to admit it. One

summer, my best friend, whom I've known since starting dance, told me about Florida State

University's School of Dance Summer Intensive. At first, I was hesitant because I had heard that

college dance was completely different from what I was used to, but eventually, I decided it

would be fun to try it out. I knew I wanted a career in dance, and this might have been my

opening for discovery.

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Soon before the classes began, we got a detailed schedule of what the two weeks would

include. Most days, we would dance from eight to eleven in the morning, then one to five in the

afternoon, and seven to nine in the evening, with a lunch break and dinner break between. The

classes in the morning and afternoon were typical dance classes, like ballet, modern, and jazz.

The elective classes were not what I was expecting. They were etiquette classes, photography

sessions, a resume-creating workshop, theater classes to help with the performance aspect of

dance, and even a career workshop to meet people who worked in different fields.

Although this might not sound like something that would affect my literacy, it absolutely

did. Brandt gives an example in her article about Raymond Branch. From a young age, a

computer surrounded him, whether in school, his father's lab, or eventually, his own. He was

always within arm’s reach of hardware and software to update and improve, and finally, he

became a "freelance writer of software and software documentation" (Brandt 170). Although I

have yet to make a proper career out of dance, Branch and I have similar experiences. We both

took every chance and opportunity we had to further our passion. Because of these opportunities,

our passion for our interests grew, but our literacy did with it.

“People's literate skills have grown vulnerable to unprecedented turbulence in their

economic value, as conditions, forms, and standards of literacy achievement seem to shift with

almost every new generation of learners” (Brandt, 166). Although they were out of the blue,

these events threw me into something that I didn’t expect, and forced my skills to improve. My

“economic value” has shifted and refined, as now I am more likely to actively read study
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material, which indirectly improves my writing and vocabulary. It is more plausible that I will be

successful, in any professional sense. Everyone grows in their own ways, and at different rates,

but it’s important to understand that this is what makes everyone unique. We each have our own

experiences that change us for the better. I know that my experiences have challenged me to be a

better writer, reader, and even a better person.

Samantha Gonzalez

ENC1101-23Fall0024

20 September 2023

Works Citied

Brandt, Deborah. "Sponsors of literacy." College composition and communication 49.2 (1998):

165-185.