Picturing Literate Activity: Pushing to the End

 

This desk has become the place where Stamer does everything: classes, internet surfing, applying for jobs, and working for the GWRJ. She has plenty of personal things on the desk, which can be distracting, but they’re also great for when she needs a break from the screen.

I Find Your Lack of Scientific Literacy Disturbing: An Everyday Joe’s Guide to Evaluating Scientific Literature

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Pauline explores the importance of scientific communication and its impact on the greater public, during the COVID-19 pandemic and beyond. Pauline provides an easy-to-follow guide for nonscientists to help them read and better understand scientific articles, as well as performing a genre analysis to discuss how the P-CHAT principles apply to scientific literature.

Beyond Type One

 

Although at first glance individuals may not consider living with Type One diabetes (T1D) to include a whole range of literacies, Hanimov explains how T1D is innately and naturally a form of literacy. She shares how her diabetes literacies emerged overtime, encapsulating new relationships and medical tools.

Technophobia in a Pandemic: Learning Combinations of Literate Activities to Write and Survive

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Allred investigates the ecological factors involved in writing before and during the COVID-19 pandemic. She shares her confrontation with technophobia amid the urgent need to substitute face-to-face writing and social practices with digital media. Along the way, she draws upon concepts including P-CHAT, multimodality, and “meta-genre” to look more closely at the ways we “do” writing, and the several literate activities that go into its processes.

Picturing Literate Activity: Shifting Spaces

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Early in the semester, Stone thinks she will associate her desk with doing work, but she soon starts seeking something more comfortable. Being in her own room, she can be as messy as she wants with her literate practices (and her environment!), but working in a common space forces her to be clean and focused. In a way, both spaces are contradictions: freeing but inflexible, or comfy but constrained.

International Business Major Experience

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Pina Santos presents the importance of cultivating particular skills and genres of writing in her major of International Business. She explores how Cultural-Historical Activity Theory is applied in understanding crucial elements of these forms of writing and their advantages to the field.

Chatting about the Radio Station

 

It’s a typical Tuesday morning for Ferretti as he gets out of bed and heads to the campus radio station for his weekly newscast. Find out how Cultural-Historical Activity Theory, years before the pandemic hit, plays a role from start to finish as he prepares to go on-air.

Is it More Than Morbid Fascination? The Empowering Effect of True Crime Podcasts

 

Sheperd explore true crime as an activity system where readers dive deep into the true crime podcasts subgenre. She addresses issues of ethical communication, civic engagement, and discourse communities.

The Magic of Handwritten Letters: Socialization in J. R. R. Tolkien’s Letters from Father Christmas

 

Sundermeier examines how socialization, one of the elements of Cultural-Historical Activity Theory, can be used as a tool to better understand the way shared stories are built through handwritten letters. Sundermeier primarily focuses on letters written by J. R. R. Tolkien (author of The Lord of the Rings series) to his children, and she also reflects on her own letter writing practices.

“What Are These Fuckin’ Iguanas Doing On My Coffee Table?”: Nicolas Cage as Genre

 

What is (a/the) Nicolas Cage (movie/genre)? Fostar uses a genre analysis to explore the topic of Nicolas Cage the actor and Nicolas Cage the genre.

Fan Fiction: Through the Years

 

Stamer discusses the history of fan fiction, explores the history of fan-based writing, and its place in the mainstream media today, as well as how it has evolved through other genres.

Tools Add Agency in Mario 3D Platforms: How F.L.U.D.D. Engages in Activity Theory in Super Mario Sunshine

 

Tools can do things without humans? Cintron Gonzalez examines the video game Super Mario Sunshine and explores how F.L.U.D.D., as a tool, adds to Mario’s game mechanics. Material rhetoric and activity theory is used to explain how Mario’s tools change his gameplay in Super Mario Sunshine compared to other 3D Mario platformers.

Emojis Across Humanity

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Lazaroff explores the development and use of the emoji to interrogate who uses emojis and why—specifically as it relates to questions of translingualism across gender and age. Lazaroff presents the emoji as a radical literate practice that is capable of making connections in the most surprising spaces.

Do You Remember What You’re Supposed to be Doing Right Now?

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Gregg discusses the processes of remembering and argues that the tools we choose to help us remember are part of our “multimodal homeplaces,” and, as such, are part of our writing researcher identities.

Mindfulness Meditation as a Form of Uptake for the Mind and Body

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Rowan shares his experiences with mindfulness meditation to help the reader better understand the often-understated bodily experiences necessary for uptake. He also shows how meditation as uptake works in the same way as uptake in other literacy activities.

Everyday Writing Researchers: A Collaborative Co-Interview Dialogue

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Gregg and Roozen conduct a co-interview where they ask each other questions about their perspectives on everyday literate activity and writing research. The following transcript excerpts selected portions of the co-interview and includes their reflections on their exchange.