This post is part of a larger handout on genre and academic writing:
http://www.accd.edu/sac/english/lirvin/1302/genres2.htmIdeas on genre from Clay Spinuzzi's
Tracing Genres Through Organizations: A Sociocultural Approach to Information Design.Viewing Genre through the lens of Activity Theory
Genre at the Macroscopic Level—Genre as Activity
At the level of activity, genre is seen as shaping and being shaped by is sociocultural and historical context (milieu).
Genre at the Mesoscopic Level—Genre as Action
As the level of action, genre is seen as a "tool-in-use," a constellation of goal-directed, conscious strategies or tactics for action.
Genre at the Microscopic Level—Genre as Operation
At the level of operation, genre is seen as a coherent collection of habits, as operationalized rules, and as the typification of talk used to maintain regularity and structure of work. Once learned these operationalized actions can be unconsciously drawn upon to perform familiar, repeated tasks.
Viewing the Traditional Genre of the "Critical Essay" through the Lens of Activity Theory
The Critical Essay at the Macroscopic Level—Genre as Activity (sociocultural and historical context)
The "critical essay" comes from the tradition of English Studies developed in the 19th century and represents in many ways a discipline-specific genre of academic writing; however, since English Departments are charged with the task of teaching "composition," this genre has always sought to perform a hybrid role of teaching foundational writing skills for academic writing. Features of this context include:
Teacher as primary audience
Purpose behind the writing activity to demonstrate learning and intellectual, aesthetic, and interpretive skills. Writing as evaluation.
Literature seen as a sort of sacred text and the critical essay as a form of "exigesis" (interpretation of the sacred text) that will develop one in "spiritual" ways
A value placed in writing on reason and intellect over emotion
The form of reason valued tends to be inductive, founded on evidence and close observation (in that way it aligns with science and its notion that truth can be apprehended through the senses) rather than from commonly held opinions (common places).
A value placed on individual and original response (and a concurrent view of plagiarism as a "sin"). Credibility comes from original and deep intellectual thinking (interpretation)
A notion of language as a mirror of thought. Writing MUST be correct to transfer this thought clearly to the reader (rather than a notion of language shaping our thought).
Puts a high value on print-based literacy
The Critical Essay at Mesoscopic Level—Genre as Action
The essay is seen as a "tool-in-use," a constellation of goal-directed, conscious strategies or tactics for action. These are the goals, strategies, and tactics employed for action
The notion that the activity of producing the critical essay follows what is called "the writing process" (invention (pre-writing), writing (drafting), revision)
The writing is often founded upon close reading
The writing is constructed along a formal structure (commonly called "essay form")
In order to demonstrate knowledge, the views of others are included in clearly discriminated ways (i.e. the use of quotes, documentation of sources)
The Critical Essay at Microscopic Level—Genre as Operation
The habits, operationalized rules, and the typification of talk used to maintain regularity and structure of work. Once learned these operationalized actions become unconscious
Specific features of format like placement of the thesis, heading (MLA Format and Documentation Style), line spacing, paragraph formation, transition sentences
Grammatical form (Standard American English)
Rules for using quotations
Sense of support and how to structure it and how much is needed
Academic Writing in many cases is a form of evaluation
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