This article traces the historical and conceptual development of what is known as activity theory, from Vygotsky and Luria, to A. N. Leont’ev, to Engeström, in order to illustrate what I see as two problems with the activity theoretic approach, especially as manifest in the work of Leont’ev and Engeström: what I call the boundary and/or focus problem and the unit-of-analysis problem. In the second half of the article, I explore the social semiotic of an everyday artifact, the “speed bump,” and introduce a discovery heuristic for examining how this artifact functions mediationally in human activity. In so doing, I have tried to discover activity through principled analysis, rather than assuming activity or activity system a priori.

This article is concerned with characterizing literacy activity as it is practiced in professional workplaces. Its starting point is activity theory, which grew out of the work of Vygotsky and has been subsequently elaborated in Russia and elsewhere. First, the authors propose that existing versions of activity theory are unable to account adequately for practical human activity in contemporary workplaces, and present a revised perspective that opens the way for new theoretical developments. Second, they elaborate two new constructs, task and work ensemble, and apply them to a short collaborative writing sequence collected in the field. Both constructs are seen to account in a substantive way for the structure of the composing activity carried out by the collaborators. They close with a discussion of the complementarity and theoretical advantages of the two constructs.

This article explores the role of embodied knowledge and embodied representation in the joint revision of a small section of a large technical document by personnel from two organizations: a city government and a consulting engineering firm. The article points to differences between the knowledge and the representation practices of personnel from the two organizations as manifested in their words and gestures during the revision task, and it points to the gestures of the city personnel as a principal means by which their greater embodied knowledge of channel easements becomes distributed across the group as a whole. The article concludes by pointing to some advantages of considering acts of writing as embodied practices and by indicating a number of related questions that should be pursued in subsequent investigations of literacy in modern workplaces.

Preview this article: Pre-Text and Composing, Page 1 of 1 < Previous page | Next page > /docserver/preview/fulltext/ccc/38/4/collegecompositionandcommunication11183-1.gif

Preview this article: An Instrument for Reporting Composition Course and Teacher Effectiveness in College Writing Programs, Page 1 of 1 < Previous page | Next page > /docserver/preview/fulltext/rte/17/3/researchintheteachingofenglish15705-1.gif

It is unfortunate that so many college teachers of writing and composition textbooks describe revision as the process by which a writer merely cleans up the mechanical and stylistic infelicities of an otherwise completed text. This simplistic view presupposes something akin to the three-stage linear model of composing set forth by Rohman and Wlecke in the 1960's.2 Research during the past decade, particularly that of Emig and Sommers, challenges the assumption underlying such a view of revision by demonstrating that revision is not the end of a linear process, but is rather itself a recursive process,3 one which can occur at any point during composing. Recent research also shows that different groups of writers revise in different ways, a finding reflected in, for example, the work of Beach, Bridwell,5 Faigley and Witte,6 Flower,7 and Murray,8 as well as Sommers. Finally, recent research has developed classification systems to explain those revisions. Such efforts appear, for example, in the work of Sommers,9 Bridwell,'o and Faigley and Witte. However much this body of research helps us to understand the results or effects of revision, it does considerably less to help us understand what causes writers to revise. The most promising research on the causes of revision, of course, is that of Flower and Hayes. Reporting on their use of composing-aloud protocols in a case study format,'2 they conclude that when expert writers redefine or clarify the audience and the goals of their texts, they frequently revise.13 This research offers the best hypotheses about the situational or contextual causes of revision. But while Flower and Hayes suggest that the produced so far becomes part of the situational context, they do not adequately explore specific textual cues that may prompt revisions. Indeed, apart from what little can be gleaned from studies which look to errors14 in the text for causes of revision, we know very little about

Preview this article: Topical Structure and Invention: An Exploratory Study, Page 1 of 1 < Previous page | Next page > /docserver/preview/fulltext/ccc/34/3/collegecompositionandcommunication15273-1.gif

Preview this article: The Stability of T-Unit Length in the Written Discourse of College Freshmen: A Second Study, Page 1 of 1 < Previous page | Next page > /docserver/preview/fulltext/rte/16/1/researchintheteachingofenglish15751-1.gif

Preview this article: Coherence, Cohesion, and Writing Quality, Page 1 of 1 < Previous page | Next page > /docserver/preview/fulltext/ccc/32/2/collegecompositionandcommunication15912-1.gif

Preview this article: Toward a Model for Research in Written Composition, Page 1 of 1 < Previous page | Next page > /docserver/preview/fulltext/rte/14/1/researchintheteachingofenglish15819-1.gif