Dante Williams Eda Ozyesilpinar English 1301 September 14, 2013

Road to Literacy
Many people have access to different kinds of sponsorship depending on the race and social status. My journey with literacy was not easy, even though sponsors changed; individually sponsors have taught me differently ways.Throughout the course of my life literacy sponsorship varied according to different stages in my life. Different paths in life affect ones ability to connect or access certain sponsors. Literacy helps people communicate and gain the basic academic skills for an individual to live a successful life. Being literate involves knowing how to read, write, and being able to do sciences and mathematics. Writing is the process of communicating or telling a story to the reader or listener clearly is vital, just as if it were an actual conversation. A writer follows a model to help them compose a text, along with the model, the writer learns to build relationships with the reader using experiences their targeted audience can relate too.

Deborah Brandt discusses a persons literacy sponsorship and how sponsorship may vary due to someones race and social status in her article Literacy to Sponsorship. The sole of a sponsor is to influence others to read and write, but not all sponsors are positive. As an African American born into a poor environment there where limited sponsors that influenced my literacy. Like most children my parents were my first sponsors. Reflecting back on my literacy sponsors I can remember my mother and grandmother being the first sponsors that encouraged me to learn

by reading me the Bible. Through the Bible I was introduced to religion and culture the stories told in the Bible influenced me to learn more about different cultures like the Samaritans and Jews. By reading the Bible I also was influenced to search for the theme behind the story and the how we can apply them to our own ways of living. Growing up in a poor neighborhood brought limitations for me to acquire literacy. But I enjoyed reading the bible so much that it lead me to read other books. Although some resources were treated poorly treated such as reading materials and teaching skills. But some of my early readings consisted of Junie B Jones, Goosebumps, and The Baby-sitters Club. These books were franchises and encouraged me to read more when I had to choose a book to write a report on I would choose one of them. These materials encouraged be adventurous outside, and also they influenced me to read books for kids my age. Such stories showed me how to use my imagination to understand and know whats going on, I was even taught new words which expanded my vocabulary. In the first grade my teachers encouraged me to follow certain guidelines to organize a text when writing. Little did I know, I was learning the composing model process as mentioned in Toward a Composing Model of Reading by Robert J. Pearson and P. Davidson. The composing model process helps the writer plan and organize his writings to communicate with the reader. My teacher taught me the steps for the model process by planning or brainstorming to come up with a general topic, drafting allows the reader to find a general topic, and what to expect (my first grade teacher), when writing the finished product, aligning helps the reader communicate with each other. Re-reading the text to interpret meaning as a reader is the revision step and helps the writer go back and fix any mistakes. The last part of the process is monitoring to make sure we have achieved our goal and followed the previous steps of the composing

model. Not only did this model help me as a writer it also help me as a reader to look at the text and search for to comprehend the authors goal in the text. I always use the model as a reader and a reader to fully understand a text by using my own knowledge on the subject. Later on in the sixth grade I moved to a middle class community where sponsorship to literacy was more accessible it was hard to communicate with the others, there was a language barrier, and so I studied and too pre-advanced placement classes to grow academically and fit in with the other kids. I was also competing to be noticed by other in my school so I studied and worked my butt off to win book reading competitions and the prize that first place came with for that year. Kids were reading buts left and right. There was one thing about the competition that not many kids liked and that was a summary of the book to prove that you read it. Competition influenced and encouraged me to learn and develop more literacy skills in order to win and be noticed for my achievement. Although I never one the reading competition taught me how to write a summary and to pay close attention to the story to know the setting the character backgrounds and the tone of the story, which helped me with future writing projects. In my English class my teacher, Mrs. Fletchner, taught us how to write drafts and why it is important to write drafts. Drafting is practice writing, she said, it helps the writer think clearly and communicate better in the final draft. Her statement proved to be true when she made us write our own stories that featured a character, a protagonist, and an underlining theme. I wrote a story about a cia agent that had to go back in time to stop world war three, it was really good and the theme was, every action has a equal and opposite reaction. I turned the paper in and she gave it back to me because there needed to be more background information on my character and events that led up to a conclusion. So I took the paper home and revised my draft and she said that it was much better, I was able to notice some mistakes and were improvement was

needed in the text. I used the drafting as a part of the composing model process, as I would see drafting did help me think clearly when it was time to compose the final draft. All I had to do was look over my rough draft and review that I had followed my outlines and correct any mistakes that I made. I would later plan for the future using the composing process model for writing to create screenplays and scripts. I started to use the composing model process to draft scripts and screenplays but I know that it was not all about the writer. I always thought from the view point of the audience on the situation and what they would think about each action and the effect it had on characters in a story, and how they affected the audience. My main focus as a script writer was to please the audience and bring to life what they would want to see. Just like writing a paper, a script you have to use situations that the audience or reader can relate too. At this point in my life film really interested me so I did all I could to learn more. I had the pleasure of meeting a film student that attended the University of Texas and let her ready my draft. She read a draft for one of my stories and said that it was really good but it also needed some revising, because there were loop holes in the story that would be hard to understand from a readers perspective. It was then I realized how important following a composing model was when writing a story, especially revising and monitoring. This encounter also helped me see that film producers and writers also follow the same process, which encouraged me to use this process more often in my free time and at school. The story is still in progress and I am looking for a general synopsis for the screenplay. As a freshman in college after doing a lot of research on literacy sponsorship, I realized that in a way I have become a sponsor myself. I continue to push myself to strive for excellence and come across clear as a writer. I hope to become a solid writer to show the reader

or audience that I care about theme and that our relationship with each other is cherished like a loved one. I would also like to use my reading and writing skills I have so far to become a mainstream screenplay writer. My sponsors now consist of my parents, friends, teachers, and books that we had to read. Deborah Brandt stated that literacy cannot be taught. I agree, the situations one goes through no matter what race or class forms ones perspective on literacy. Literacy can be competitive, encouraging, and stressful; but it helps the world grow and keeps the past from repeating itself. As I move on to college I realize that I myself have become one of my own sponsors by putting pressure on myself to succeed and obtain more literacy, with no disrespect to Professors. As I reflect back to the beginning stages of obtaining literacy and the challenges that Ive overcome. I see that Literacy has motivated me to succeed, but success comes with a price and that price is pressure. Now I deal with pressure of becoming literate and not forgetting all the knowledge past sponsors have given. I see that different types of sponsors have influenced me at different stages in my life from the Bible at an early age to self-sponsorship.