In the earlier maps of our campus there aren’t any residence halls from what I can tell, which goes back to the idea that we were a commuter school. Also back on the old campus’ there were a lot less buildings, from this I infer two different things. One is that there were much fewer students so there didn’t need to be as many classrooms, and second is that our educational fields were not as broad as they are now.

Reading about what the actual school was like when it was first founded from an actual student is really interesting. When he was discribing what he remembered I was actually trying to picture what it was like back then.

From my observations something that I believe discourages adults from increasing their literacty skills is that the believe they have made it to where they need to be in their jobs and life so they don’t need to put in the effort to enhance themselves. Sometimes they also think that they are too old to do it.

When I hear the word sponsor I think of someone who backs you up in the activities you do. One memory that really stands out for me is my Confirmation. A sponsor is there to guide you and help you get the materials and knowledge you need to be successful in whatever you’re pursuing, whether it be educational or extra-cirricular.

According to Brandt sponsors are “any agents, local or distant, concrete or abstract, who enable, support, teach, model, as well as recruit, regulate, supress, or withhold literacy – and gain advantage by it in some way.”

When Brandt says that “literacy is in pursuit of [you].” She is saying that in this day and age literacy is needed for most any jjob that you might do, therefore literacy needs you to get the job done and do it successfully. A sponsor may permit literacy by giving you a reason to enhance your literacy or guiding you to that enhancement, but it can also prohibit literacy by putting up obstacles for the student seeking literacy to overcome.

My experience is more like Raymond Branch’s. I have always had rich resources open to me in my schools, home and community, and I was always given opportunities to enhance my literacy.

Some key agents in sponsoring my literacy are my parents, Coach Curtis, my friends and my brother. They are the ones who read to/with me growing up, and have continued to encourage me to keep going even though I don’t enjoy reading or writing.

I don’t really see how a prohibiting agent can be a who, and if it can be how they can gain an advantage from it. I haven’t had any of those experiences personally. My main prohibiting agent is myself because I cannot find any encouragement inside myself to increase my literacy, but I am only left with a disadvantage rather than an advantage.

On Tuesday my reader needs to focus on where I am trying to take them in the conclusion and how I am getting there. I don’t feel like my paper is organized correctly yet, but I’m not really sure how to go about changing that and still keeping all the information on it.

For my research project I would really like to focus on the high school here in Commerce. I am thinking about trying to figure out why some people lean more towards the english subjects and others more mathematical. What draws people to those two subjects (rather than both)?

My biggest concern is that I am not quite sure what we are really doing with our final research projects.

I also thought it was cool how Mayo made his normal college so well rounded with cirricular and extra-cirricular alike, but the extra-cirricular activities were also sources of learning, and everyone was involved in one way or another.

It was really interesting to read about how our university was created and how much it is still imitated in Mayo’s example today. I really enjoy the close community of the college and how involved the instructors, students and community are involved with the college. It creates a wonderful learning environment, and an enjoyable time for everyone involved, in most cases anyway.

I think that Resnick makes a very good point. Some of the examples she uses are very familiar to me. For example, the part where she is explaining the reasons why school readings often take away pleasures of the readings.

Apprenticeship to me is an opportunity for a learning experience with the guidance of someone else. In today’s society there are many forms of apprenticeship. One form that I see quite frequently is tutoring. A tutor and their student work on a specific topic in order to increase the students knowledge of that particular subject. Both the tutor and student get rewards from this experience.

The passage from Resnick’s essay as I interpret it means that rather than literacy just be something seen as learning and working on skills we should change it into something that goes along with the culture and our society. I agree with this, because if literacty is just another part of society than people will be more likely to pick it up and work with it rather than if is forced upon them in schools. For the kids and adults who have trouble with literacy in schools they might not feel intelligent enough to keep working on their skills but if they were able to be part of an apprenticeship then they might be able to, and be more willing to, pick up on their literacy skills. As a way to get apprenticeships in the schools we could have something like a big brother/big sister reading program in which an older kid would read to or listen to and help a younger child read.

Two examples of useful literacy that Resnick gives us are job applications and instruction manuals that we have to read. I can’t reallly seem to come up with three other examples that she doesn’t use in her essay. This just goes to show that I agree with her stating that things like these belong in the useful literacy category. If we didn’t have things like these to give us instructions on then we would be in trouble because something as simple as putting a baby’s crib or playing  a game wouldn’t be as easy for us, let alone filling out a sheet with a bunch of blank spots in it.

Resnick’s examples for informational reading are “how-to” texts and newspapers and magazines. She says that these are used to keep a person updated with what is going on in the world, and just keep them informed. Some other examples of informational literacy are textbooks, which are used everyday in schools for the purpose of teaching children something, and something as simple as the bible which is used in order to inform people of different religions how they are supposed to live their lives in order to spend eternity in heaven. I would say that I agree with Resnick on her view of what informational reading is. What i get out of these different examples is overall a learning experience with different types of information.

Pleasurable literacy is a completey different topic in its own, but not really at the same time. Pleasurable literacy can be reading or writing anything, it all depends on the reader. Resnick uses examples like a narrative or an expository essay. The expository essay could also go into a different category of literacy, but if the reader enjoys reading it then it also belongs under the category of pleasurable reading. I definitely stand by what Resnick is saying about the definition of pleasurable literacy because it truly is about what the reader thinks is enjoyable.