From Noob to Veteran in League of Legends: Activity System and Genre Analysis in Video Games

​

How do we learn to play video games?  Hancock explores the process of learning how to play her favorite competitive game, League of Legends, using antecedent knowledge and genre analyses while participating in the game’s discourse community. After researching across a variety of genres within League’s activity system, Hancock learns how to improve at the game and becomes a fan of the game’s competitive esports scene.

The Lawyers Are Now in Session- Genres, Discourse Groups, and Multimodality in Law

​

Mool interviews two lawyers to talk about the writing processes in law. They speak about how different texts in law are used, why the language used can sound so foreign and stiff, and what it actually takes to make these documents.

Behind the Silver Screen: The Movie Theater as an Activity System 

 

Activity systems are everywhere—even at the movie theater. Looking at AMC Theatres, Pierce investigates the ways genres intersect to create one giant activity system that allows us to watch the movies we love on the big screen.

Snowpiercer: Preparing for Winter as an Activity System 

​

Preparing for battle, getting battle gear, and learning all there is to know about the unrelenting adversary in the hope that your conquest and victory ensures your survival—this is what preparing for winter means for those new to snow and the icy cold. Ankomah explores finding winter gear as an activity system and how it compares to acquainting oneself in new writing situations.

All the World’s a Stage: The Multiplicity of Audience

​

Dukic discusses the reader’s potential membership in target audiences using examples from ISU campus and articles from prominent news outlets. Awareness of one’s inclusion in a target audience is not always obvious, but through active reading and with the help of the Activity Triangle, an individual can realize their agency as a member of a target audience.

Navigating the Labyrinth of Information Fluency in an Era of Fake News

​

Parker explores the concept of fake news using the ISU Writing Program concepts of genre and CHAT. Using genre analysis and CHAT analysis, she creates a snapshot of what Fake News is today as well as what impact it has on the world. Parker also explores how to develop good information-seeking behaviors to combat the spread of misinformation via fake news.

Inked: How a Tattoo Comes to Be a Bigger Part of Our World

 

Minasian discusses how tattoos attend to both language and writing. Minasian shares her experience with her own tattoos and applies the process of a tattoo entering the world to Illinois State University’s version of Cultural-Historical Activity Theory (CHAT).

Activism and Activity: How Posters Work as Genres of Protest

 

Korankye explores the genre composition of posters and placards that are used universally in protest marches, examining the ways in which they communicate information. Korankye applies the Writing Program’s version of CHAT (Cultural-Historical Activity Theory) in order to examine how posters serve as rhetorical genres and historical artifacts.

Cajun Come to Town: On Cajun French, Translation, and Civic Engagement

 

Emily Fontenot explores translingualism through her Cajun heritage and her work as a fiction writer. She explains the decisions she has to make when it comes to language and the importance of those decisions.

My Semiotic Junk Drawer: Literate Practices, Remediation, and Maybe Even a Little Magic

 

Walker shares her thoughts about the idea of a “toolkit” for writing. She advocates changing our metaphors in order to better describe what really happens when we write. Instead of thinking about building a tidy, narrowly focused writing toolkit, she wants to convince you to consider what skills and knowledge might be hiding in the complex space of your writing junk drawer.

SoundCloud as a Genre: Looking Beyond the Music 

 

Renken examines the genre of music streaming service SoundCloud through the lens of Cultural-Historical Activity Theory (CHAT).

When Writing Becomes High Stakes: A Grassroots Literate Activity Interview

 

Krapivkin interviews her father about his time writing for the San Diego Reader. Specifically, she asks him about his writing practices and the genres he became familiar with while working for the Reader. After, Krapivkin reflects on the interview and her own experiences with the places her father wrote about.

Thank You for Your Submission: A Grassroots Literate Activity Interview between the Interns of the GWRJ

​

Stamer interviewed her fellow Grassroots Writing Research Journal intern Koziol, who provided valuable insight into how she has grown while working with the journal. Koziol was also able to shed some light on what runs through our heads as we go through the reviewing and editing process. Hopefully this can demystify the process for folks!