Post 8

In Brandt's article "Sponsors of Literacy" we learn the impact that the people or the things that teach us how to read and write affect our development of thinking. In Malcolm X article learning to read, he expresses how he wanted to have the ability to read and write better. He could only speak slang, but not be able to articulate correctly. Malcolm began to read books while he was in jail, in the beginning he struggled considering he didn't know the meaning of the words he was seeing. So his sponsor of literacy became a dictionary in which he would write in his tablet and learn words every day. Malcolm sponsors of literacy included the dictionary, the prison’s library, Elijah Muhammad, and many other authors of book he read that impacted his way of thinking. Considering his socioeconomic status and his race, Malcolm was not able to be taught how to read and write by a teacher; especially while being in prison. So Malcolm had to take his educational needs upon himself.  Malcolm believed that he is so busy battling the white man that being in prison was the best place to learn, in which he states “I don’t think anybody got more out of going to prison than I did.”  As Malcolm begin to succeed in reading comprehension and writing, he began to read the books of Elijah Muhammad and write him letters. He also read books about other African American writers who wrote about their history. Malcolm literacy sponsors constrained his literacy in a negative way because through the topics he was reading he began to develop a strong dislike in the White culture.