Okay, this was quite an interesting article...to say the least. It was a bit long and may prove to be difficult to summarize in an executive manner, but I will try.
In this article, Prior and Shipka discuss the idea of “activity theory” and “Chronotopic Lamination” which, simply, has to do with the physical processes and social environment’s role and how they work together for a subject to produce writing. The researchers interview, interpret drawings, and analyze texts produced by a wide range of participants: Some are undergraduates studying engineering and some are doctoral students working on dissertations in Library Science and some are professors. Activity theory researchers try to understand what trajectories people are on in relation to how they write and in which context the individuals live. There are many, too, what one may call, “sub-theories” within activity theory that help expand the scope of what and how it studies information in relation to the individual and group; however, researchers have expressed concerns that activity theory heavily relies interdisciplinary discourse.
To introduce some of the initial and fundamental concepts of activity theory, the authors describe the simple, yet complex, set of actions that take place when a psychology professional (for example) composes a paper. The professional does laundry during her writing and takes time to fold her laundry every 45 minutes and listens for the buzzer on her dryer as a cue when to take a break and reflect while she does laundry. This act, plus the fact that it is associated with women, is the other half of activity theory; this is the part that that relies on the incorporation of sociological perspectives consciously and unconsciously held by the subject. These two parts joined are what is also known as: “cultural historical activity theory (CHAT), a tale of how tools (external aids) mediate activity, altering the flow of behavior” (180) This is the basic premise for activity theory.
The authors move on to discuss several other participants in their study. For instance, one participant that was an engineering student displayed her creativeness for a simple composition project : She was to, in 250 words, write a statement describing what her “ethics” were and how they were developed in her academic life; she was also asked to describe how she plans to employ them in her future career. This somewhat simple task was interpreted differently by the student. She created a word search puzzle with several words that indicated how she had developed ethics. This was met with resistance and she received a low score on the project. The authors of this article describe how the girl came about thinking about this type of presentation and how she developed it. A lot has to do with the context in which she already existed and what it is comprised of: Her peers, her teachers, herself. This type of context is a crucial element to activity theory and how something, as a paper or project that isn't necessarily a paper, develops and then gets constructed. What the subject wrote has a lot to with goals, unconscious goals, motives, and operations.
There are several other concepts within activity theory, “ Sense affect and consciousness,” being the main topic that attempts to really understand the reader/writer/activity/context relationship. A lot of it deals with the actual things people do to ensure a better writing environment. Some people may light candles or turn on music and others have a completely different approach as to best suit themselves to write; These activities testify to how complex and stratified writing does become. It has roots that grow in all directions and, as the authors mentioned, becomes a sort study within a study; really understanding the the iner- workings of the human mind and how it relates to any number of outside stimuli is a phenomenon vastly misunderstood.
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