Uptake 
Terms

Uptake refers to the activity we do or experience as we take up new ideas, terms, and/or practices. When we talk about uptake, we might refer to many activities–we process, we document, we map, we trace, we make visible–in relation to our evolving writing practices and writing learning.

Uptake genres refer to the kinds of texts in particular genres that we use to document, trace, and share our uptake of new concepts, terms, and practices. When we practice uptake using particular kinds of texts, we try to acknowledge the effect of the genre we’re writing in (journal entry, survey, interview, visual mapping) on our representation of our uptake.

Antecedent knowledge refers to the facts, information, and skills that we each bring with us into familiar and new-to-us writing situations. When we talk about antecedent knowledge, we include our previous writing experiences with particular kinds of writing and prioritize articulating previous knowledge that we are often not required to describe or unpack explicitly.

Antecedent experience refers to embodied experiences that we each bring with us into familiar and new-to-us writing situations. When we talk about antecedent experience, we include our feelings and embodied responses to particular kinds of writing and prioritize articulating responses that we are often not required to describe or unpack explicitly.

Divergent uptake is a way to see and understand that everyone’s uptake is highly individuated, different from other people’s uptake of the same idea, term, or practice. When we talk about divergent uptake, we want to be clear that divergence is a norm, that our making sense of new things is necessarily different from other people’s because we each have different past experiences that shape how we understand ourselves and others in the world.

Antecedent genre refers to genres that have come before and are related to the genres that we are writing in right now, specifically the genres that have directly contributed to the conventions of the everyday genres we now participate in.

Genre reversion describes the process through which writers make use of genres that are familiar to them when producing a text in a genre that is new to them.

Discursive turbulence is a way to describe how new perspectives on writing bump up against our deeply held, often unexamined beliefs about writing in ways that we do not always notice or fully understand the consequences of.