V's Pick #20: Literacy in American Lives by Deborah Brandt

Brandt was the first literacy scholar I read and despite how far I've come from that reading two semesters ago, I can still say, she's the bees knees. As an ethnographer, her accounts of the lives of literate and illiterate are some of the most in-depth and human. If one knows nothing more of literacy in general, Brandt's treatment of "sponsors" is arguably the most important concept to come to the field in the last 30 years. A sponsor is an "agent" - local or distant, who gets an advantage by helping someone become literate. Most people cite their parents, teachers or churches as sponsors, for example. Your parents teach you to read, they get joy, pride and bragging rights - you? You get to read. So far, Brandt is the only literacy scholar I've read whose work connects the economy as a driving force in the literacy practices of individuals, which is something I find hard to believe considering how much job acceptance has to do with ones' skills.