'Big Picture People Rarely Become Historians': Genre Systems and the Contradictions of General Education
By D. Russell, A. Yáñez. 2003
134 citations recorded by the source corpus.
This study synthesizes Y. Engestrom’s version of cultural historical activity theory and North American genre systems theory to explore the problem of specialized discourses in activities that involve non-specialists, in this case students in a university 'general education' course in Irish history struggling to write the genres of professional academic history. We trace the textual pathways (genre systems) that mediate between the activity systems (and motives) of specialist teachers and the activity systems (and motives) of non-specialist students. Specifically, we argue that the specialist/lay contradiction in U.S. general education is embedded in historical practices in the modern university, and manifested in alienation that students often experience through the writing requirements in general education courses. This historical contradiction also makes it difficult for instructors to make writing meaningful for non-specialists and go beyond fact-based, rote instruction to mediate higher-order learning through writing. However, our analysis of the Irish History course suggests this alienation may be overcome when students, with the help of their instructors, see the textual pathways (genre systems) of specialist discourse leading to useful knowledge/skill in their activity systems beyond the course as specialists in other fields or as citizens.
Subfields: Language and Linguistics, Literature and Literary Theory, Sociology and Political Science
View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/e201f7113f4b01ce01082df09999daa0305e93a8
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In Language and Linguistics
In Literature and Literary Theory
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Citations in the corpus
- Toward a Unified Social Theory of Genre Learning (2008, background): “In the third generation of activity theory, the basic model is expanded to include a network of at least two interacting activity systems (Engeström & Miettinen, 1999; Russell, 2005; Russell & Yañez, 2003).”