In my research project for ENG501 Approaches to Research, a class which I did not take first in my program for reasons unknown, I built upon a previous class I had taken: ENG556 Approaches to Literacy.

Using the idea of literacy sponsors found in Deborah Brandt's "Sponsors of Literacy," I build up a critical framework that could be applied to various forms of media, from TV shows to movies to books. The framework asks if and how these works portray power imbalance in literacy, a crucial issue in reality.

In my later class, ENG560 English Drama, I took the chance to apply parts of my critical framework to Restoration Dramas. I wrote a piece to analyze how, in plays staged hundreds of years ago, literacy was portrayed. I pulled evidence from 4 dramas that revealed who read and wrote, what they read and wrote, and why they read a wrote. I also studied the real-world culture of literacy at the time, which is somewhat different to modern times.

In my paper, I pulled everything together to show how literacy and the marriage market went hand-in-hand in these plays. Literacy wasn't a necessity, but a tool that could be used to increase or decrease someone's value in the marriage market.