I crafted the Life and Literacy Narrative assignment to present a personal experience of mine that had provided insight and development toward an improved literacy. I wanted this text to emulate concepts of an article we read in class, “Sponsors of Literacy” by Deb Brandt. This article discussed how people, places, economic factors and opportunity can all be considered sponsors of literacy. In my essay, I tell the story of learning Spanish as study abroad student in Costa Rica. My host parents provided me with various sources as well as opportunity to improve my Spanish literacy as my sponsors.

 

I wrote my essay as a day-to-day memoir of my experience. I focused on events that reflected my sponsors of literacy during my time in Costa Rica. For revisions, I tried to add a sentence of two that evaluated the situation in regards to the bigger concept I discuss at the end or I tried to incorporate thoughts in the day-by-day entries that connected, subtlety, to the overarching theme of literary sponsors. An example of this can be found at the end of the entry for June 18th. My host-parents’ grandson and I fumbled through our language barrier when he was trying to ask whether or not I wanted a cookie. At the end of the entry, I asked, “Who would have a thought a six-year-old and cookies would be my Spanish lesson?” I used this question to evaluate my various sponsors of literacy and the different forms that those sponsors can take.

 

In my essay, I wrote the events to be in an order that showed my distress and discomfort initially and followed a=my journey along as I improved and took notice of the materials and people that helped me through my Spanish literacy. I evaluate and reflect on those materials and people at the very end of my essay but did not want to discuss these reflections too much in the entries because I thought it would take away from the experience I was explaining because I thought the text would lose its journal style dialogue and would be confusing to the reader. However, I think the addition of the reflective sentences at the end of each entry foreshadowed the larger connections I make in the conclusion.