Paul,
I was quite interested by the following point you made.
"I think their [Dias, Freedman, Medway, and Pare] research program is quite
fascinating and includes a lot of
rich stories, but it does repeatedly represent writing in school as
explicit, clear, evaluated, motivated by student learning, and
individualistic and writing in the workplace as tacit, messy, unevaluated,
motivated by practical production, and collaborative. "
While working with the vocational educational programs in community colleges
I interacted with representatives of various industries. In looking for a
better instructional program/occupational opportunity fit, our research
always indicated that reading and writing skills were a sin qua non of
employee qualifications. At one time I imagine possession of a high school
diploma or some college, as shown on the job application, had a higher
probability of guaranteeing this than in the recent past. I'm wondering
whether the research on writing in the workplace that you mentioned took
this into account. Were the workers they studied just "writing sloppy"
although they could do it better (as in the case of the non-aristotelian
short cut, make do categories) or is it simply that they didn't know how to
write any other way?
I also want to thank you for summarizing the ongoing discussion of genre and
artifact. I have felt a similar uneasiness as you express when you write,
"From a Bakhtinian perspective,
I'm a little concerned about the possible implications of calling genres
tools: as practices or ways of orienting to discursive worlds rather than
set text types; genres certainly are mediating activity, genring to play on
Alton Becker, but tool could have that thing-y ring to it."
Insofar as all tools shape the tool-user, it would seem that genres which
coincide with social identities would shape the tool user more completely
and than other orders of tools (e.g., use of hand tools leading to a fully
erect posture in phylogeny). I guess what I'm wondering is whether there
is any tool user independent of the genre--i.e., the person who uses a genre
inhabits it in a way that isn't the case with the prototypes we normally
associate with the word "tool". I drive a car, ride a bicycle, cut wood
with a radial arm saw, scroll with a mouse, etc. but I speak like a
teacher answering question, a police officer giving a ticket, etc. There
seems to be always a question of identity involved in questions of genre
that differentiates them from other types of tools.
Paul H. Dillon
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