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Deborah L. Brandt (born 1951) is professor emerita of English at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Brandt earned her B.A. from Rutgers University in 1974 and her Ph.D. from Indiana University Bloomington in 1983, after which she worked for the University of Wisconsin-Madison until she retired in 2010. Although she has published more than two dozen articles and book chapters, she is known for Literacy in American Lives, for which she won three awards: the Modern Language Association's Mina P. Shaughnessy Prize (2002), the Grawemeyer Award (2003), and the Conference on College Composition and Communication's Outstanding Book Award (2003). Her text Literacy as Involvement: The Acts of Writers, Readers, and Texts (Southern Illinois UP, 1990) won the 1992 David H. Russell Award for Distinguished Research from the National Council of Teachers of English.

Brandt was awarded two fellowships, one with the American Council of Learned Societies in 1986 and another with the National Research Council in 1998, for which she was a Visiting Scholar at the United States Department of Education. Brant is the 2017 winner of the Conference for College Composition and Communication (CCCC) Exemplar Award.

Brandt's research focuses on the social contexts of mass literacy and literacy learning; and on large-scale, structural forces that shape individuals' access to literacy.

In Literacy in American Lives Brandt "explains how generations of Americans have made sense of and coped with increased pressure to improve their ability to read and write." By analyzing the literacy histories of hundreds of Americans from all walks of life, Brandt documents the effects that the changing economic, political, and sociocultural conditions in American society have had on literacy acquisition and usage, from the 1900s to the present day. In this text, she puts forward the notion of " Sponsors of Literacy,"; she writes: "Sponsors, as I have come to think of them, are any agents, local or distant, concrete or abstract, who enable, support, teach, or model, as well as recruit, regulate, suppress, or withhold literacy -- and gain advantage by it in some way." Through the concept of sponsorship, Brandt argues for attention to the socioeconomic and contextual forces that grant access to literate resources to some and deny it to others.

The John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation says that "the impact of her work has been felt well beyond the borders of the University of Wisconsin campus."

Brandt worked as a Research Associate at the National Research Center on English Learning and Achievement (1996-2002), a consultant for the National Assessment of Adult Literacy (2005-07), and with the National Writing Project. Her ongoing efforts in support of social justice and educational opportunity in the Madison, Wisconsin community have been recognized by the NAACP's W.E.B. DuBois Advocate Award (2001) and two nominations by the Madison Urban League for the city's Martin Luther King Humanitarian Award for her work with Madison middle-school students.

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Deborah L. Brandt (born 1951) is professor emerita of English at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Brandt earned her B.A. from Rutgers University in 1974 and her Ph.D. from Indiana University Bloomington in 1983, after which she worked for the University of Wisconsin-Madison until she retired in 2010.

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she wanted equality when it comes to education, for it to reach more people and improved reading for americans through sponsors

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She is professor emerita of English at Wisconsin-Madison and a project head at the National Research Center on English Learning and Achievement. Her work focuses on literacy and its social contexts, specifically the ways that social structures and forces shape people's access to literacy.

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She is professor emerita of English at Wisconsin-Madison and a project head at the National Research Center on English Learning and Achievement. Her work focuses on literacy and its social contexts, specifically the ways that social structures and forces shape people's access to literacy.

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She is an English professor as well as the project head for the National Research Center and English Learning and Achievement.

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DB is a now retired English professor that taught at U of W- Madison for thirty years. With this, we are able to understand that arguments that she makes are well researched and insightful.

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older relatives, teachers, priests, supervisors, military officers, editors and influential authors.

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She argues that race and class can impact one's access to education and enrichment in studies. Some are put at an unfair disadvantage even when they begin at the same beginning level as someone else.

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She examines and analyzes the factors and conditions in American society from the 1900's to the present that influence literacy acquisition and usage

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DB is an English professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. She leads in the field of literacy studies which ties into her credibility

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Deborah Brandt is a English professor who has written several research papers and books all with the common theme of literacy and its effects educationally, economically, and politically.

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DB is a English professor at the university of Wisconsin-Madison. She is a literacy researcher

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Her research findings on literature have been noted by several organizations such as the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation. Furthering her credibility.

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DB an English professor with a phd in Wisconsin. Why does it matter? She is a social justice warrior fighting for educational opportunity in Madison, and has been nominated for two social justice rewards.

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Deborah Brant is professor emerita of English at the University of Wisconsin Madison. In one of her most famous pieces of writing entitled "Literacy in American Lives", she reports and logs the effects that American society has on "literacy acquisition and usage."

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Sponsors lend their credibility to those they sponsor, and in return they gain the benefits from their success.

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"But [this essay] does offer a conceptual approach that begins to connect literacy as an individual development to literacy as an economic development," (Brandt 166)

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"Sponsors are a tangible reminder that literacy learning throughout history has always required permission, sanction, assistance, coercion, or, at minimum, contact with existing trade routes. (177)"

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DB argues that sponsors of literacy establish that the ability to be literate is often granted with ulterior motives by the sponsor to give themselves gain.

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The mastering of literacy is often determined by our economic status. The higher the status, the more connections and opportunities the person has(as exemplified by the comparison of the lives of Dora Lopez and Raymond Branch). This is becoming especially concerning in a world that has increasing standards on what is considered "good" literacy.

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she argues how literacy has become less individual and more economic due to sponsors who have learned to underwrite literacy to their advantage.

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she argues how literacy has become less individual and more economic due to sponsors who have learned to underwrite literacy to their advantage.

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important quote: "it is useful to think about who or what underwrites occasions of literacy learning and use." (166)

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Brandy argues that all literacy and access to literacy is regulated, taught, and enabled by "sponsors", individuals or groups in power who stand to benefit from it.

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Brandy argues that all literacy and access to literacy is regulated, taught, and enabled by "sponsors", individuals or groups in power who stand to benefit from it.

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"At the same time, 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." (166)

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"At the same time, 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." (166)

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"any agents local or distant, concrete or abstract, who enable, support, teach, model, as well as recruit, regulate, suppress or withhold literacy - and gain advantage by it in some way."

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"sponsors are delivery systems for the economies of literacy, the means by which these forces present themselves to and through individual learners" (pg 167) 

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"sponsors are delivery systems for the economies of literacy, the means by which these forces present themselves to and through individual learners" (pg 167) 

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Sponsors explicitly and latently appear in formative roles to track different cultural attitudes people have towards reading/writing

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Figures who turn up in people's lives that impact their relationship with literacy. These figures may be parents, teachers, authors, friends, etc.

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Sponsors...are any agents...who enable, support, teach, model, as well as recruit, regulate, suppress, or withhold literacy—and gain advantage by it in some way.... Although the interests of the sponsor and the sponsored do not have to converge (and, in fact, may conflict) sponsors nevertheless set the terms for access to literacy and wield powerful incentives for compliance and loyalty. Sponsors are a tangible reminder that literacy learning throughout history has always required permission, sanction, assistance, coercion, or, at minimum, contact with existing trade routes.

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The impact of not having access to education effects opportunity
how sponsors impact opportunity for literacy and growth to their advantages

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"local or distant agents that can either model or suppress literacy and gain advantage" These sponsors are typically richer, more educated, and may appear in the form of a corporation or even a political party. 

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"local or distant agents that can either model or suppress literacy and gain advantage" These sponsors are typically richer, more educated, and may appear in the form of a corporation or even a political party. 

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"Usually richer, more knowledgable, and more entrenched than the sponsored, sponsors nevertheless enter a reciprocal relationship with those they underwrite"(167)

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Sponsors are individuals with more knowledge that is willing to grant literacy with other parameters involved.

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They're basically the people who introduce or influence the way we pick up or fail to access literary skills.

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Sponsors of literacy are individuals or organizations who hold economic, social, or political power to teach and provide incentives for literacy and regulate access to it. The kinds of literacy that are taught, the incentives for it, and the causes that learners are recruited into are directly tied to economic demands and changes.

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Sponsors of literacy are individuals or organizations who hold economic, social, or political power to teach and provide incentives for literacy and regulate access to it. The kinds of literacy that are taught, the incentives for it, and the causes that learners are recruited into are directly tied to economic demands and changes.

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"I am not advocating that we prepare students more efficiently for the job market... I have tried to suggest is that we assist and study individuals in pursuit of literacy, we also recognize how literacy is in pursuit of them. When this process stirs ambivalence, on their part or ours, we need to be understanding." (Brandt 20)

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Not having enough access to education and it impacts how sponsorship Sponsor . they have to be careful how they handle and act in front of sponsor ship program’s it has high expectations