We have two activities proposed for this fall-- a reading of Jim Wertsch's
*Mind as Action* and a discussion of activity theory approaches to
diversity, with papers presented at Aarhus and related readings as the
contents.
Olga Vasquez and her merry band of helpers at LCHC have agreed to try
organizing the latter topic, using our weekly lab seminar as the focal
event locally and providing some mechanism for making papers/chapters/etc
available to interested parties.
we have no volunteer(s) for organizing the discussion of Wertsch. The
book is divided into 5 chapters and a brief epilogue. The chapters average
about 35 pages each.
My suggestion is that someone(S) out there in xmca-land take responsibility
for leading the discussion of Wertsch. If 5 volunteers would act as
discussion leaders for one chapter, and if each chapter was discussed for
a week, we could finish that discussion 5 weeks from now and move on to
the diversity discussion, which will begin in early October when UCSD
swings into action and LCHC awakes from its summer slumber.
I see not harm in more than one person taking the lead on a chapter, so
I suggest that we immediately begin a process of self-nomination starting
with chapter 1 and going to chapter 5. I expect that someone with book
in hand will get us started by giving a brief summary of their take on
Chapter 1 as a stimulus to discussion and as a mechanism for those who
aren't reading to follow along with the discussion.
Over the next few weeks, I will work with Olga and others here at LCHC
to get ready for the diversity discussion, where the materials are more
complicated to gather. Ideally we will be able to post papers on the
XMCA web page, but I can imagine complexities when it comes to chapters
that are already published, etc.
Who will lead us through Chapter 1?
mike