Introduction: An Ecological Approach to Rural Literacies 1. Why Worry About the Rural, and What is “The Rural” Anyway? 2. Interlude on Researcher Positionality 3. Sketching A Literacy Sponsorship Network: Visualization as Method and Rhetorical Practice 4. Functional Ecologies: Collective Collaboration in Abbyville’s Literacy Sponsorship Network 5. Functional Ecologies: Collective Maintenance of Abbyville’s Literacy Sponsorship Network 6. Racial Barriers to Literacy Sponsorship Roles in Abbyville 7. Not Always What, but How: Study Ethics, Methods, and Methodologies 8. Conclusion: Futures for Researching Small Literacy Sponsorship Networks Appendix A - Interview Questions Appendix B – Interview-Based Codebook