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Thursday, October 16, 2014

Response to “Activity Theory: An Introduction for the Writing Classroom” by Donna Kain and Elizabeth Wardle



Question 1.
Explain in your own words what an activity system is, and give three examples activity systems with which you are familiar. For each of these systems, explain what its common motives and goals are.

Response 1.

An activity system is very similar to a discourse community in my eyes. It appears that activity systems have a deeper definition although they have 6 conditions just as discourse community does. I would define an activity system as a growing group of communicative people with both a past and a future with similar goals both individually and as a group. Some discourse communities cannot be activity systems but all activity systems are discourse communities. Three examples of activity systems are ski racing, mountain biking, and a charity club. Ski racing has a large group of people looking to grow skiers in to the best they can be, each person involved has their own goals. Athletes want to obviously ski as fast as possible while coaches want to grow the sport and help all athletes thrive. Mountain biking has everyone looking to get stoked and have a good adventure. A charity club looks to improve upon what they have done in the past and help the community improve.

2 comments:

  1. I like your interpretation of an activity system and how you compared it to a discourse community. It is obvious that they are pretty much the same thing, but I thought you did a good job of still differentiating the two if someone were to ask a difference.

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  2. There are several types of team building activities. Most of these fun team building activities for work can be done in a meeting as long as a safe environment and enough time is provided. Sometimes we might need to plan a special event so that other work does not interfere with the learning process.

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