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When people write about what they are passionate about, then they are good writers. This idea comes from the construct that people write what they know. Informal writing helps us express our ideas and emotions, while formal writing helps us accomplish goals. Writing is a viable skill to have in the real world. It's necessary to survive. What determines our writing level is also attributed to the amount of literature we were exposed to at an early age. In "Sponsors of Literacy" by Deborah Brandt, the idea that different levels of literacy are achieved by the kind of upbringing and environment you were raised in is a factual and true thing. Brandt states, "A statistical correlation between high literacy achievement and high socioeconomic, majority-race status routinely shows up in results of national tests of reading and writing performance. Deborah Brandt tells the story of two people with different economic backgrounds (one middle class Caucasian male, and one lower class Hispanic woman) that found different academic success based on the amount of technology and literature they had access to. The Caucasian man had access to his own personal computer at age twelve. The Hispanic woman had access to public computers that helped her learn English faster, and surely not a personal computer at age twelve. .
A lack of literacy sponsorship can also prove to be a positive thing. With nothing more then a Junior High Education, Civil Rights activist Malcolm X was set back from fully expressing his thoughts because he did not know the words to say. Then, when he entered the Norfolk Prison, he found an appetite for reading and expanding his diction. His lack of literacy sponsorship when he was a young man was replaced by his demand for a self-taught education as a grown man. This education helped him to become one of the most influential leaders of the civil rights movement of the 1960's.