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Critical Question 1: In their intro, Bawarshi states that he will “investigate the role that the ‘process movement’ has played in shaping our views of the writer as ‘author’ over the last forty years, views that have contributed to a privatization of invention from a social and rhetorical act to an individual and introspective act” (13). How did the expressivist and writing process movement frame writing as an introspective and self-invented activity? Although socio-epistemic rhetorical theory and genre analysis theory aim to move away from viewing writing as an invention of the individual, how do process and expressivist thinking linger in genre analysis theory?
Critical Question 2: Bawarshi writes, “writers both invent and are invented by the genres that they create” (12). How does genre analysis theory relate to writing to learn theory? Writing to learn theory views writing as a tool for learning, placing writing’s value in its potential to create understanding rather than highlighting the intrinsic value of writing. How does the idea of “invention” relate to socio-epistemic rhetoric?
Bonus Question: According to Kain and Wardle, "the lens of activity theory encourages us to look at the rules or conventions adhered to by the group, how the work (the labor) is divided up within the group, and the tools (including texts and language) that help (or impede) the group in working towards their shared motives" (274). How are activity theory and genre theory different than discourse community theory, according to SwalesLinks to an external site. and Gee Links to an external site. (see embedded links)? How do they build off of one another? What does activity theory address that discourse communities theory leaves out?
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Activity theory examines why things are occurring the way they are. Examine a community you belong to and answer some of the following questions: What historical forces are shaping how people interact in this system? What are the outcomes? What rules allow for that outcome to happen? Where is it written down? What subjects manage the tools and rules? How is labor divided up? Who gets to use what tool to do the work?
One community that I was reflecting on is the Grad Student Association. The GSA is currently creating itself, and to do so, we are creating genres that will define our community and its objectives. I decided to break down the discourse community/activity system using Kain and Wardles' Parts of An Activity System diagram.
Subjects: Attendees at the past GSA meetings, our council members (Presidents, co-presidents, secretaries, Grad council reps, etc..), along with the members in our discord server, and the faculty mentors
Motives: Short-term goal (object) to increase visibility and recruit members, along with being officially recognized and funded by the school. Long term goal (outcome) to create community amongst graduate students, to provide resources and opportunities for interdisciplinary projects, networking and professionalization, to voice the demands and desires of grad students at CWU and to create a sustainable and organized club so it can be inherited by future generations of graduate students.
Tools: Genres of communication are located in our discord server. Within the server, there are many subgenres that help us meet our motives, objectives, and outcomes. Council members intercommunicate via email and a private discord channel. When in person, we use our computers, laptops, and zoom, including the zoom chat, to organize and record our meetings. We use formal academic administrative lexis as a tool to gain professional recognition from the institution. We also use genres of professional documents (meeting agendas, meeting minutes, club constitution) as tools. At this stage, our tools are used at a level of conscious action. We are forming our genres and tweaking them to best serve the community and our objectives. They are not yet operationalized, and we are receiving a lot of feedback on what documents should do and look like. For example, we've had an ongoing email communication chain about how to format our meeting agendas and minutes since the last meeting was too disorganized for our secretaries’ liking, and they had a difficult time taking notes.
Community: The GSA resides in the larger community of Central Washington University. Groups that are connected to the GSA include: the Graduate Council Members, the grad student community at large, faculty instructing graduate students, the postgraduate CWU community, and whoever and whatever entity controls school budgeting.
Division of Labor: Our labor is divided between the council positions on our committee. At this point, we are still defining the responsibilities and jurisdiction of each role, and inventing new roles to further divide the labor of our club. Some positions include president, co-pres, secretaries, treasurer, online community liaison, discord moderators, social media coordinators, and grad council liaisons. This year, we decided mostly on having two officers per position, so the labor is even more split up and collaborative. The roles we create and the way we divide labor now will directly create the kind of work we do as a club. At this point, weve only had a little bit of conflict amongst members because we havent clearly defined our roles, rules, sub-objectives. We also have different experience levels when it comes to university clubs.
Rules: Our community is still drafting its constitution, so at this point, we are mushfaking, trying to mash together our prior experience and backgrounds to abide by social norms, values, and conventions that we assume our GSA will establish as rules in the future. My co-social media coordinator and I just created a “rules page” for our discord server, which contains general respect and anti-hate speech guidelines. We are looking for moderators that will help enforce and moderate these rules in our online community.
Historical Context
Our GSA exists within a historical, social, cultural, political, and economic context. According to Kain and Wardle, activity systems are created by practices that have a history. This refers to the “ways that the university carries out its activities developed over time. Many things we do today can be explained by the history of the university’s mission as well as the history of western education institutions” (Kain and Wardle 276). We are "rebooting" the GSA, which lost funding and fizzled out during covid. Much of our paperwork includes proving to administration that we are a club worth recognizing and funding. Funding is a primary goal and reality of clubs at universities. The GSA must prove that they are worth something and will be allotted a price tag/budget. The commodification of education and academia is not a new movement, but neo-liberalization does play a role in amplifying these extensive procedures. According to Scott and Welch, "Neoliberalization is a way to describe the changes we are seeing in higher education that have had their analogues in virtually every sector of our society, especially the public and governmental sector" (7).
Genre Analysis
The GSA's current genres include:
discord and creating the channel
rules channel
mod and online liaison positions
social media coordinator meeting notes and to do list
GSA meeting minutes
they are working on the club application
grad council minutes (I asked for the meeting notes to prepare myself for the social environment)
emails between payton and I
According to Bawarshi, "writers both invent and are invented by the genres that they write" (12). As we create these genres for intercommunication and outward establishment of our goals and objectives as a community, we are forming the identity of our members and how they relate to one another. By creating specific channels, I am predicting and forming the needs and ways that members relate to one another.
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