The last literacy narrative I read was “Blank Screen” by Meghan Mazzocchi. Mazzocchi describes how she feels during the beginning stages of writing a paper. As a reader you will soon realize that her main issue is finding what to write about, “After spending hours of starting the same sentence over and over again getting frustrated at the computer screen” (Mazzocchi 1), a good answer for this issue is prewriting activites. While reading about Mazzocchis struggle of writing I asked myself, why is all the blame on the person who is trying to master the skill? Could it be they are struggling because the sponsor isn’t engaging enough or isn’t giving the student the resources they need? As she continues to tell a story she states, “He was my english teacher for two years and he never took the time to get to know me as a student” (Mazzocchi 2), this english teacher is the person who is going to draft her essay that determines her future. How can he do that if he doesn’t even know a little bit about her. He simply can not because “He gave me so much advice on how to ‘fix it’ that the essay started to sound more like him then it did me. It was the first time that I felt like I couldn’t speak up in my writing” (Mazzocchi 2). As Mazzocchi explains because he didn’t know who she really was he didn’t understand what she was writing was correct in some way. This so called sponsor was making the essay almost kind of his not hers. So therefor it can’t all be Mazzocchi’s fault that she is struggling because she has a sponsor that isn’t engaging or open for discussion. He doesn’t even really give her resources just advice that if she doesn’t take will effect her grade in the class. The lack of effort from the sponsor will have an effect on the confidence but into that student paper because they soon feel lost and confused. As Brandt would describe Mazzocchi as a victim. As a victim she also answered another question of mine, can someone sponsor themeslves? Yes, as Mazzocchi states “It was that I realized that no matter how much advice you can get from even the most brilliant person in the world there is nothing more important than listening to yourself” (4). Someone can sponsor themselves as long as they have the confidence to do so.
collreadwrit2e
