1. B. Hamilton
Reactions and Reading Notes
Literacy in American Lives, June 2005
page 1
Buffy Hamilton
ELAN 8005, Summer 2005
Reactions/Reading Notes
Literacy in American Lives, Deborah Brandt
Independent Study Overarching Questions
What different kinds of literate communities exist, and how are they
sponsors of literacy?
How do these literate communities and literacy sponsors shape
lifelong reading? How do they affect cultural perceptions about
reading?
How do books and reading define culture? How does culture define
books and reading?
Introduction: The Pursuit of Literacy
“In short, literacy is valuable---and volatile---property” (p. 2)
“As a resource, literacy has a potential payoff in gaining power or
pleasure, in accruing information, civil rights, education, spirituality,
status, money” (p. 5)
Key terms: literacy learning, literacy development, literacy
opportunity (p. 7)
Literacy Learning Literacy Development Literacy
Opportunity
Specific occasion The accumulating project Refers to people’s
when people take on of literacy learning across relationships to
new understanding of a lifetime; the social and economic
or capacities---not interrelated effects and structures that
confined to school or potentials of learning over condition chances
formal study time…related to life span for learning and
and historical events that development
affect literacy as a
collective good
Concept of “birth cohort” method of analysis---members are
entitled to “…participate in only one slice of life---their unique
location in the stream of history” (p. 11)
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Buffy J. Hamilton.

2. B. Hamilton
Reactions and Reading Notes
Literacy in American Lives, June 2005
page 2
Analytical approach to literacy learning called “sponsors of literacy”;
Brandt defines sponsors as “…any agents, local or distant, concrete
or abstracts, who enable, support, teach, and model, as well as
recruit, regulate, suppress, or withhold literacy---and gain
advantage by it in some way” (p. 19)
“…sponsors nevertheless set the terms for access to literacy and
wield powerful incentives for compliance and loyalty. Sponsors are
delivery systems for the economies of literacy, the means by which
these forces present themselves to---and through---individual
learners. They also represent the causes into which people’s
literacy usually gets required” (p. 19).
“The competition to harness literacy, to manage, measure, teach,
and exploit it, intensified throughout the twentieth century. It is
vital to pay attention to this development because it largely sets the
terms for individuals’ encounters with literacy. This competition
shapes the incentives and barriers (including uneven distributions of
opportunity) that greet literacy learners in any particular time and
place” (p. 21)
Reactions:
I had never thought of literacy as property---this is an intriguing
premise! The notion of concrete sponsors of literacy is fairly easy to
conceptualize, but the notion of abstract sponsors of literacy is a little
more difficult to envision---I am eager to expand my concept of the
possibilities and powers of literacy sponsors.
Thinking about my overarching questions and my role as an educator,
I have to wonder how I am a sponsor of literacy? What possibilities
and barriers do I present in my role as a secondary English teacher or
high school librarian? How can I use my role to create more even
“distributions of opportunity” for the learners I encounter? On a larger
scale, how does the institution of public school create and deny
opportunity for students from all walks of life?
This also makes me think of my days in American Literature way back
as a junior in high school in 1987---I distinctly remember sitting an
English class and a discussion/debate we have on free will vs. fate---
the idea that your environment shapes you and you are a product of
the environment you are born into (we were studying Realism and
Naturalism). Putting into this context, are our literacies determined by
the literacy sponsors in our lives, or do humans have any free will in
determining their literacy growth over a lifetime?
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Buffy J. Hamilton.

3. B. Hamilton
Reactions and Reading Notes
Literacy in American Lives, June 2005
page 3
Chapter 1: Literacy, Opportunity, and Economic Change
Literacy was originally “regarded as a duty to God or democracy; it
is now, according to the government, a duty to productivity, and
one with increasingly sharp consequences for those not in
compliance” (p. 26)/ “…aim of universal literacy began as in
imperative of the Christian mission…” (p. 27)
Aims of literacy shifted to nation building, social conformity, civil
responsibility (p. 28)
Literacy sponsors---those who support or discourage literacy
learning and development as ulterior motives in their own struggles
for economic or political gain----literacy sponsors are an
“illuminating lens for tracking the presence of economic forces at
the scenes of literacy learning, for tracing connections between the
ways that money gets made and the way that literacy gets made”
(p. 26)
Two significant dimensions of literacy development: 1. Cultural
and social organization of a particular economy creates reservoirs of
opportunity and contrast from which individual stake their literacy
2. How these backgrounds can later become exploitable by agents
of change (p. 34)
“Literacy learning is conditioned by economic changes and the
implications they bring to regions and communities in which
students live. Economic changes devalue once-accepted standards
of literacy achievement, but more seriously, destabilize the social
and cultural trade routes over which families and communities once
learned to preserve and pass on literate know-how. As new and
powerful forms of literacy emerge, they diminish the reach and
possibilities of receding ones” (p. 42).
“The school’s responsibility should not be merely---and perhaps not
mainly---to keep raising standards, revising curricular, and
multiplying skills to satisfy the relentless pursuers of human
capital”(43).
“Downsizing, migrations, welfare cutbacks, commercial
development, transposition, consolidation, or technological
innovations….can wipe out as well as open up access to supports for
literacy learning. They also can inflate or deflate the value of
existing forms of literacy in the lives of students. Any of these
changes can have implications for the status of literacy practices in
school and for the ways students might interact with literacy
lessons” (p. 44).
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Buffy J. Hamilton.

4. B. Hamilton
Reactions and Reading Notes
Literacy in American Lives, June 2005
page 4
“How do rapid changes in the means and materials of literacy affect
the ways that people acquire it or pass it on to others?” (p. 44)
“These standards…almost always deliver, in unquestioned ways, the
prevailing interest of dominant economies” (p. 45)
Reactions
This chapter was somewhat unsettling---it is like hearing an idea for
the first time and at first, you do not want to even consider the idea
could be true because it is so unsettling to your mindset of the world.
But as time goes on, a secret fear gnaws at you---what if the idea is
true?
The idea of literacy as an economic commodity used to perpetuate
some big machine of economics and culture definitely disrupts my rosy
concept of literacy as something that can help anyone overcome any
circumstance. Are concepts of literacy organic rather than static? Is
our definition of literacy and what counts as literacy truly subject to
the economic forces at work in our country? Is this true for all
countries? How do teachers and parents anticipate what literacies
may evolve and what will count so that our children will be prepared to
face the rigors of lifelong literacy learning? Is literacy only about
economic capital rather than something that can help one live a richer
personal life? Or is the idea of literacy as something to enrich one’s
personal life even possible if you don’t have the access in terms of
being under the influence of the dominant or most powerful literacy
sponsors?
How can literacy be the great equalizer in American society if where
and when you are in a particular point in history determines your
literacy learning, literacy development, and literacy opportunities?
Can public schools ever escape the overwhelming pressure to produce
“human capital”? This line of thought strikes at a central question that
seems simple but is really quite complicated: “What is the purpose of
public school?” It seems that in my studies of literacy and learning the
last few years at UGA, I always circle back to this question, and the
responses from different “sponsors of literacy” are very different. How
do we reconcile these differences in philosophy of the purpose of
public schools? Is it even possible for these entrenched practices to be
completely disrupted and a new ideal/vision to be implemented? In
looking back at this chapter, what are the implications for the United
States if the current system of literacy development, learning, and
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Buffy J. Hamilton.

5. B. Hamilton
Reactions and Reading Notes
Literacy in American Lives, June 2005
page 5
opportunities are perpetuated? It sure doesn’t seem like the “system”
is working too well to me. Is this because of the paradigm of our
schools? Or are we a mere reflection of larger cultural and societal
issues in the United States where personal responsibility is no longer a
source of pride but a thorn to be pressed into the side of anyone who
might try to hold someone responsible for their actions?
I have a hard time trying to reconcile the differences in the mindset I
grew up with and the ideas that disrupt this mindset….
Chapter 2: Literacy and Illiteracy in Documentary America
“Although in principle literacy is a foundation of American
democracy, it is in practice a trouble some source of inequity and
disequilibrium in the administration of justice” (p. 47)
“…documents in all modern organizations---control the way that
decisions are made, justice is rendered, and resources are
distributed. The dominion of documents in very real ways
constructs who we are and to what we are and are not entitled” (p.
49).
“…histories of competition among the sponsors of literacy also
provide the resources on which people depend as they cope with
escalating demand and shifting definition of literacy” (p. 51).
“…individual literacy development takes place in synchrony with
economic and political developments. The cases also illustrate how
struggles among sponsors of literacy create opportunities and
barriers for individual literacy learners…the dynamics of these
contests affect not only people’s economic chances but often their
ability to exercise basic rights” (p. 51).
Concept of history of unionism, industrial relations, changing nature
of work, as literacy sponsors, specifically history of unionism,
attorneys, college-educated union coworkers (case study of Dwayne
Lowery) (p. 55)
“Yet there is more to be seen in this inventory of literacy sponsors.
It exposes the deeply textured history that lies within the literacy
practices of institutions and within any individuals’ literacy
experiences. Accumulated layers of sponsoring influences---in
families, workplaces, schools, memory----carry forms of literacy
that have been shaped out of ideological and economic struggles of
the past” (p. 56)
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Buffy J. Hamilton.

6. B. Hamilton
Reactions and Reading Notes
Literacy in American Lives, June 2005
page 6
“These histories enable one generation to pass its literacy resources
onto another…this history also helps to create infrastructures of
opportunity” (p. 57).
“…however, this layered history of sponsorship is also deeply
conservative and can be maladaptive because it teaches forms of
literacy that oftentimes are in the process of being overtaken by
new political realities and by ascendant forms of literacy” (p. 57).
“It is actually this lag or gap in sponsoring forms that we call the
rising standard of literacy. The pace of change and the lace of
literacy in economic competitions have both intensified enormously
in the recent past…where once the same sponsoring arrangement
could maintain value across a generation or more, forms of literacy
and their sponsors can now rise and recede many times within a
single life span…this phenomenon is what makes today’s literacy
feel so advanced, and at the same time, so destabilized” (p. 57).
Penitentiary system, philosophies of prison management, law,
judicial decisions, social pressures influencing prison management
and rehabilitation---these created structures of opportunities and
barriers for literacy (pp. 64-65).
Prison libraries: “Nowhere can the ideological vicissitudes of
institutional social beliefs about literacy itself” (p. 67).
“But as reading took on other purposes in the large society, shifting
from a focus on the religions and didactic functions to leisure and
entertainment, rationales for prison libraries became more tenuous”
(p. 67).
“Sponsors subsidize (or don’t) the development of people’s literate
resources as a way to recruit or coerce those resources to their
cause; they also can reject or discard the literate resources of
people that no longer serve their interest” (p. 70).
“It is these characteristics of the sponsors that give contemporary
literacy its demanding qualities of complexity, multiplicity, and
stratification, its sense of surplus and its volatility” (p. 70).
“This synchronization among literacy learning, histories of economic
and political struggle, and sponsorship suggests a need for
definitions of literacy that better incorporate the ways that literacy
actually gets made in the lives of people” (pp. 70-71).
“The farther away one is to start with the more it takes to become
and stay literate” (p. 72).
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Buffy J. Hamilton.

7. B. Hamilton
Reactions and Reading Notes
Literacy in American Lives, June 2005
page 7
Reactions
The concept to “layers of literacy” and how a person’s history of
literacy “piles up” made me think of Bakhtin and his notion of
dialogism as well as his concept of heterglossia or many-
voicedness. This chapter definitely ventures into a sociolinguistic
perspective.
This chapter seems to contradict the American concept and pride in
individualism and free will----it seems that a person’s literacy and
who counts in society are at the whims of fate and economic
privilege. In some ways, I buy into this precept, but in other ways,
I do not because for every example I can think of where this is true,
I can think of exceptions to this as well.
It is truly startling to think that forms of literacy and literacy
sponsors can “rise and recede” many times in one’s lifetime. How
do we prepare students to deal with this new reality? How will
technology and our information age continue to shape these rapidly
shifting literacies?
The reading on the prison libraries and how the purpose and
contents of the prison libraries were shaped out by outside forces
was truly fascinating to me as a librarian.
The concept of our society as one that is based on documents was
thought provoking---in our to fully participate in our society, one
has to be able to possess the right literacies to exercise his/her
rights and freedoms to the fullest extent.
The power and clout of literacy sponsors hold both promise and
peril----who are the most important literacy sponsors in today’s
society in general?
“The farther away one is to start with the more it takes to become
and stay literate” (p. 72).----“No Child Left Behind” promises to
equal the playing field, but how does this legislation really address
this assertion by Brandt? How do we as a society help accelerate
the distance between illiteracy and literacy?
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Buffy J. Hamilton.

8. B. Hamilton
Reactions and Reading Notes
Literacy in American Lives, June 2005
page 8
Chapter 3: Accumulating Literacy: How Four Generations of
One American Family Learned to Write
“Contemporary literacy learners---across positions of age, gender,
race, class, and language heritage---find themselves having to
piece together reading and writing experiences from more and
more spheres, creating new and hybrid forms of literacy where once
that might have been fewer and more circumscribed forms” (p. 75).
Concept of the military as a literacy sponsor during World War II
and the “literacy crisis”(p. 86 and 89).
“Literacy spread last and always less well to remote rural areas and
newer, poorer industrial areas---a geographic and political legacy
that, even today, in the United States, helped to exacerbate
inequalities by race, regions, and occupation” (p. 88).
Moral overtones of handwriting (pp. 94-95) and its influence on
children’s feelings about writing into adulthood
“This accumulation of literacy---shaped out of economic struggles,
victories, and losses of the past---provides an increasingly intricate
set of incentives, sources, and barriers for learning to read and
writing. The contexts of contemporary literacy learning grow
ideologically dense, rife with latent forms of older literacy at play
alongside emerging forms…rapid changes in literacy and education
may not so much bring rupture from the past as they bring an
accumulation of different and proliferating pasts, a piling up of
literate artifacts and signifying practices that can haunt the sites of
literacy learning” (p. 104)
“Literacy is always in flux” (p. 104)
Reactions
I think it is both interesting and frightening that elementary school
children’s intelligence and status are often sized up/assessed by
their handwriting. While I think handwriting is a lost art, I don’t
think it is vital to academic success, yet I see teachers labeling
students in the primary grades with this somewhat archaic form of
literacy. Even to this day, my mom states that she still stings with
shame at the thought of her third grade teacher reprimanding her
poor handwriting and how stupid it made her feel.
How is it that even today, geography and politics still reinforce the
gaps in equity and access to literacy?
How do we prepare today’s learners to deal with the rapidly
changing “hybrid forms” of literacy?
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Buffy J. Hamilton.

9. B. Hamilton
Reactions and Reading Notes
Literacy in American Lives, June 2005
page 9
What are the implications of the “accumulation of literacy” for
classroom practices at all levels? How do children thrive or survive
in spite of practices that are increasingly test-driven? Do test
taking literacies match up with those needed for today’s economy
or society?
Chapter 4: “The Power of It”: Sponsors of Literacy in
African American Lives
African Americans’ literacy have for the most part been excluded
from the “needs of the nation----except in periods of temporary
crisis” (p. 105)
“The full worth of their literacy was usually was honored only within
the African American community itself” (p. 106).
“The Church”---major sponsor; teachers and educators also major
sponsors (pp. 110-132)
“Communal nature of learning”---sharing of resource of literacy and
education resources among family and community (p. 129);
“literacy instruction couched in hope”
Role of apprenticeship----a powerful medium in the African
American community (pp. 129-130)
“…sponsors of literacy leave their marks on the literacy of the
sponsored. For many historical reasons, the ideological context of
African American-sponsored literacy retains a strongly spiritual
component” (p. 143).
Church continues to be a key sponsor of “literacy use and
development” (p. 143).
“However, African American sponsored-literacy has stayed more
consciously connected to the original traditions of American literacy
emphasizing collective faith, democracy, and citizenship” (p. 144).
“Because of the economic and professional constrictions imposed by
racial discrimination, African American sponsoring agents for
literacy were fewer in number yet denser in power, and again, more
likely to be connected than directly to founding forces of mass
literacy” (p. 144).
“Traditional sponsors of African American literacy ask their
sponsored to reach deeply into the original sources of American
literacy---into human spirituality, solidarity, and citizenship rights.
If these ideological contexts for literacy were to be embraced more
regularly by schools, workplaces, and other sponsors of literacy,
racial equity in access, achievement, and reward for literacy might
become more possible” (p. 145).
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Buffy J. Hamilton.

10. B. Hamilton
Reactions and Reading Notes
Literacy in American Lives, June 2005
page 10
Reactions:
I really was fascinated that the same institutions and “sponsors” who
in general helped the African American weather the storms of racism,
oppression, and injustice are the same ones who shaped literacy,
which was seen as the key to overcoming those withering societal
storms. Are these institutions still key today, or are these sponsors
losing their power in the African American community? If they still
wield power, how could they work with schools to help improve school
achievement for more African American students?
Are churches sponsors of literacy for any other specific groups in
today’s society?
Should we as sponsors of literacy in education make a more explicit
link between literacy and “democracy and citizenship”? It seems that
throughout the history of the world, knowing how to read and write
was a skill that was considered vital and essential to improving one’s
lot in life. Why is it that reading and writing do not seem important on
a personal or intrinsic level to so many students today?
What about other ethnic groups in America? In particular, I wonder
who and what are the sponsors of literacy for our growing Hispanic
community?
If these ideological contexts for literacy were to be embraced more
regularly by schools, workplaces, and other sponsors of literacy, racial
equity in access, achievement, and reward for literacy might become
more possible?
Are there sponsors of literacy who do not want equity in access,
achievement, and reward for literacy? I remember in one graduate
class a discussion that centered around the notion that existing
practices stay as they are to privilege the dominant class and to
disenfranchise those outside that dominant class. At first blush, this
sounds like a far-out conspiracy theory, but when you look at what is
happening in public schools, you really have to wonder if there are
grains of truth to this idea.
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Buffy J. Hamilton.

11. B. Hamilton
Reactions and Reading Notes
Literacy in American Lives, June 2005
page 11
Chapter 5: The Sacred and the Profane: Reading versus
Writing in Popular Memory
“Reading…has always been a more clearly defined curricular
activity, whereas definitions of writing in school have continued to
shift…reading...fits more easily than writing with traditional roles of
student and teacher, one as receptor of knowledge and the other as
conduit”(p. 147)
“People typically remembered their first reading experiences as
pleasurable occasions, endorsed if not organized by adults. On the
other hand, many early writing experiences, particularly those set
outside of school, were remembered as occurring out of the eye of
adult supervision, and often, involving feelings of loneliness,
secrecy, and resistance (pp. 149-150).
“The vividness of early reading memories suggests their importance
and their association with pleasure and family intimacy” (p. 150).
Reading for religious purposes as part of family routine/holiday
ritual; other homes---storybooks and comic books (p. 150).
“Reading to preschool children cut across class, race, generation,
and sometimes language (p. 151). “Nevertheless, reading and the
teaching of reading were widely considered as a normal part of
responsible care of young children in many households. The heavy
hand of mothers in organizing book-based activities especially
indicates the close association between reading and child rearing”
(p. 151).
“Beyond the home, public libraries also signaled the cultural value
of reading” (p. 151).
Public libraries used more by urban dwellers, especially if accessible
by foot or public transportation (p. 151).
Concept of traveling libraries and bookmobiles in rural
schools/neighborhoods (p. 151). Library as means of self-
education; library as sponsor of literacy (p. 152).
“Buying books, particularly children’s books, was another indication
of the value of reading that was communicated to children. Buying
books and magazines was, in fact, more common in families than
use the public library” (p. 152).
Encyclopedia sets, garage sales/secondhand shops/library
sales/books kept in prominent places (p. 152).
“Privately owned books tended to be preserved across
generations”(p.152).
“Books were given as gifts” (p. 153).
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12. B. Hamilton
Reactions and Reading Notes
Literacy in American Lives, June 2005
page 12
“In general, reading was remembered as an activity, indeed a
ritual, that was knitted into holiday celebrations as well as in to the
ordinary routines of daily life. There was a reverence expressed for
books and their value and sometimes a connection between reading
and refinement or good breeding” (p. 153).
“….reading was most typically remembered and described as a
deeply sanctioned activity in the culture at large” (p. 153).
“Although the ability to write was widely---almost unanimously---
regarded a precious, memories of writing and learning to write
diverged significantly from those of reading. Writing appeared to
develop in situation and out of psychological motivations that were
saliently, jarringly different from those surrounding reading”(p.
154).
“Writing was more often recalled in the context of humiliation and
anxiety” (p. 154).
“…the feelings surrounding early self-initiated writing were
described as lonely”(p. 154).
“…it is noteworthy that the motivations for the writing in these
cases were not book and the motivators were not adults. Rather,
the occasions and impulses to write emerged from the children’s
immediate circumstances and feelings. Whereas people tended to
remember reading for the sensual and emotional pleasure it gave,
they tended to remember writing for the pain or isolation it was
meant to assuage”(pp. 154-55).
“The ambiguity that surrounded memories of writing actually began
at a more fundamental level: the definition of writing itself” (p.
156).
“…reading was usually recalled as a clearly demarcated activity: t
he names of first books, even in some cases, the first lines of first
primers, surfaced in people’s descriptions. Memories of writing
were decidedly more vague”(p. 156).
“On the whole, it must be said that the status of writing in everyday
literacy practices appeared decidedly m ore ambiguous and
conflicted in comparison to reading” (p. 160).
“Writing did not seem to be broadly sponsored or endorsed by
parents, nor did the identity of “writer” seem as easily available as
the identity of “reader” (p. 160).
“…across the generations, school based writing was widely
associated with pain, belittlement, and perplexity” (p. 164).
“Messages about the prestige of reading are sent to children early
and often” (p. 167).
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Buffy J. Hamilton.

13. B. Hamilton
Reactions and Reading Notes
Literacy in American Lives, June 2005
page 13
Reactions
This was probably the chapter I found to be most relevant and
meaningful to me. It is truly fascinating that reading bears such a
revered status in our society. For me personally, I remember my
parents encouraging the reading and writing that I started at an early
age. I frequently received books as gifts, and as a child, spending
time alone in my room with a book was one of my preferred activities.
One of my favorite memories is going to Kessler’s Department Store in
Canton and going down this flight of stairs to the toy department---I
always bought either a Trixie Belden book or a “Meg” mystery book.
Everyone referred to me as a “bookworm”, and of course, I was
always in the highest reading group in elementary school. I honestly
think 80% of everything I know is from reading----I was a voracious
reader of fiction as well as nonfiction as a child----a book was my
constant companion. I even loved encyclopedias! My favorites were
an old set of Childcraft books someone gave to me and a partial set of
Encyclopedia Britannica for Children---I thought those were very cool
as well as all the volumes of the Charlie Brown Book of Questions and
Answers. I certainly didn’t something stupid like Accelerated Reader
to motivate me to read---I enjoyed it for the sheer intrinsic thrill!
I frequently wrote stories as a child as well----in fact, I declared I
wanted to be an author in 4th grade after reading Gone with the Wind
and Little Women. My parents even gave me a typewriter! I used it
to write both stories as well as newspaper articles (I was also into
being a broadcaster and reporter). At the same time, I did enjoy
making my own books with pictures and words from magazine cutouts,
especially those from Reader’s Digest. I also had a story published in
the Christmas edition of the Forsyth County News---I remember being
very proud when my 4th grade teacher read it to the entire class. Even
in high school, I wanted to be a journalist---even as a teenager, I
enjoyed writing essays although I got away from creative writing as a
high school student. I also won a few essay contests in junior high
and high school.
Ironically, neither of my parents finished high school, and the only
college graduates in my life were my teachers. I grew up in what was
then VERY rural Forsyth County. I think I was highly literate from the
time I was small to even now, yet I managed to thrive in what should
have been an environment that according to Brandt, should have
limited my access to literacy. How did I thrive in spite of that?
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Buffy J. Hamilton.

14. B. Hamilton
Reactions and Reading Notes
Literacy in American Lives, June 2005
page 14
The discussion of libraries as literacy sponsors as was also of great
interest to me. I do not recall ever going to a public library as a child
except to go to a 4-H meeting; I did go the one in Canton as a
teenager, but I mainly went to do these torturous assignments I had
as an 11th grader that involved looking up and writing weekly
assignments involving literary criticisms! However, in elementary and
junior high (all in Forsyth County), I was always in the SCHOOL
library. I was constantly checking out books and reading---I loved
both of those libraries, and I think they were important literacy
sponsors for me. However, I never used the high school library
(where ironically, I worked this past year!) unless I had a specific
academic assignment, and even that was a rarity for me to go there. I
don’t really recall much about that library other than it was small,
cramped, unwelcoming, dark, and had few books. The librarians were
also unfriendly and not helpful at all. Thankfully, the library changed a
lot from that this past year!
I do wonder why Brandt did not include the public school library as a
literacy sponsor in this chapter? Did the interviewees not have access
to one in their school, or did she simply overlook this sponsor?
I find it fascinating that reading is held as such as revered activity for
people as children, yet adult reading has been steadily declining for
the last 50 years. Why do people emphasize its importance to children
when they do not engage in this activity regularly as adults?
I am also intrigued by the notion of books as sacred objects and being
preserved across generations----why is this? I know I still have
almost all my books from my childhood, and I can’t bear the thought
of letting them go even though they are not really all that valuable. As
a librarian, I know that many people (and even some librarians) can’t
bear the thought of throwing a book when a collection is weeded, even
if that book contains outdated or erroneous information. Where does
this reverence of books come from in American society? Is this true in
all segments of American society?
In terms of thinking about reading and writing as an economic
commodity, I do not remember my parents ever telling me I needed to
learn how to read and write to be successful, but I do always
remember their expectation that I would go to college, period.
However, that seemed to me the natural order of things in spite of the
fact we knew no one (other than my teachers) who had actually done
that!
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Buffy J. Hamilton.

15. B. Hamilton
Reactions and Reading Notes
Literacy in American Lives, June 2005
page 15
Chapter 6: The Means of Production: Literacy and
Stratification in the Twenty-First Century
“Despite expanding democracy in educational chances, access and
reward for literacy still travel along dividing lines by region, wealth,
and prerogative”(p. 169).
“….literacy clusters with material and political privilege” (p. 169).
“These disparities have always existed in the history literacy, but
they took on new conations at the start of the twenty-first century
as the status of literacy itself grew so high, so central to economic
and political viability”(p. 169).
“…this intensifying worth of literacy brings renewed possibility to
the democratic hope in public education that more equal
distribution of literate skill can moderate the effects of inequality in
wealth and civil rights. But as a matter of fact, the advantage of
literate skill is helping to aggravate social inequity. Just, as it
seems, the rich get richer, the literate get more literate”(p. 169).
“Literacy learning, in school and out, takes place within systems of
unequal subsidy and unequal reward---systems that range beyond
the influence of any individual family’s assets, beyond any one pile
of cultural capital that a student or a home might accumulate” (p.
170).
“Literacy is the energy supply of the Information Age. This unusual
status also illuminates why highly developed literacy skills---or I
should say, skills of a certain sort---can be a source of economic
and social advantage, just as it also confirms why illiteracy has
become such a thorough liability from the standpoint of economic
productivity (because it cuts a person off as supplier, producer, and
consumer)”(pp. 171-172).
“How are the means of production by which individuals become
literate related to the means of production in a nations’ economic
system, and particularly to structural changes and developments
within that system?” (p. 172).
“…people who labor equally to acquire literacy do so under systems
of unequal subsidy and unequal compensation. Economic values
circulate along with systems of literacy sponsorship, affecting,
among other things, the relative rarity and power of literacy
opportunities”(p. 181).
“….the status of literacy as not merely an individual skill or a
cultural practice but as an economic resource, as an object of
development, investment, and exploitation around which both value
and competition intensify”(p. 183).
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Buffy J. Hamilton.

16. B. Hamilton
Reactions and Reading Notes
Literacy in American Lives, June 2005
page 16
“The more schools find themselves replicating market interest
within their institutional practices, the more they may disadvantage
the already economically disadvantaged” (p. 186).
“Although there is understandable pressure for schools to march in
step with productive forces, equity asks that we march in step with
the needs of all students, to be responsive to their past histories
and current aspirations”(p. 186).
Reactions
In many ways, this chapter was really repetitive of some of
the ideas and themes that emerged in earlier chapters. I
would say the central theme of the book is that literacy in
America is inextricably linked with economic and political
power. Literacy is not the great equalizer in our society as
we envision as Americans, but instead, it is actually what
stratifies and widens the gap between classes in society.
Is this concept true not just in America, but also true in
other countries around the world?
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Buffy J. Hamilton.

17. B. Hamilton
Reactions and Reading Notes
Literacy in American Lives, June 2005
page 17
Conclusion
Implications
1. Literacy is being sponsored in different ways than the past…
Education, religion, and local commerce with their cultural
agents. Today’s literacy sponsors are more prolific, diffused and
heterogeneous (p. 197).
2. The diversification of work, especially parental work, brings
various kinds of materials, instruments, and other resources into
o homes where they can be appropriated into teaching and
learning (p. 198).
3. Patterns of literacy sponsorship in a parent’s lifetime may bear
little resemblance to the patterns in his or her child’s lifetime,
and the same with teacher and student. In a society inured to
change, the significance of this phenomenon should not be
overlooked (p. 200).
4. The insinuation of market forces into the meaning and methods
by which literacy is learned pose crucial ethical and policy
questions for public education. Especially dangers are the ways
that education is now being cast as a privatized and
individualized commodity---something that families obtain singly
for their children”(p. 202).
“The more that private interests take over the education
development of our young citizens, the less of a democracy we will
have. The more that the school organizes literacy teaching and
learning to serve the needs of the economic system, the more I
betrays its democratic possibilities”(p. 205).
“That is, how might we begin to talk about the responsibility that
this economy has to teacher sand students instead of only the
responsibility that teacher sand students have to this economy?” (p.
206).
“How would the democratic mission be strengthened if students
learned to read and write as forms of civil rights? My hunch is that
literacy achievement would rise”(p. 206).
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Buffy J. Hamilton.

18. B. Hamilton
Reactions and Reading Notes
Literacy in American Lives, June 2005
page 18
Reactions
I think this final chapter really speaks to Brandt’s vision for literacy in
America: literacy as a means for cultivated democracy and equity for
ALL Americans rather than literacy only as an economic commodity to
be exploited by “big government” and other literacy sponsors. Again,
in many ways, this goes back to that central question of “What is the
purpose of public schools?”
I guess I am wondering still if it is possible at this point in American
society for private and/or economic interests to be removed from the
process of creating literacy. It seems so deeply ingrained that unless
you are home-schooling your children (and even then, I’m not sure
you can completely escape this influence), there is no way that a child
would not be influenced by these kinds of literacy sponsors.
All work property of Buffy J. Hamilton, ©2005. No work may be used or reproduced without the express written consent of
Buffy J. Hamilton.