Kaylee's Blog

     Before this class, in my mind genre meant a category of some form of art that is characterized by similarities in subject matter and/or appearance. Some examples of this that I can think of are horror, romance, or my dad's favorite, comedies. Growing up, that is the only context that I had ever heard the word genre be used in. People would always ask, "what's your favorite genre of [book, movie, etc.]?" Personally, I have always loved horror. Especially movies like The Conjuring or The Purge. After taking this class my definition of genre is expanding. It now includes genre as a typified response to a  recurring  situation. This is the basic definition that I was taught in class. Simplified, it is something similar to a format that is made as a response to a recurring problem. The example that was used in class was a resumé. They are always a similar format that can be personalized but all have a basic layout that is the same. Another example is a card...

    As I have been thinking of memories that could be significant enough to tag on my map to represent my writer-research identity, I have specifically been thinking of some of the books I really enjoyed because I am not that much of a big reader.       Whenever I do find a book that I am actually into it is a pretty big deal and I normally tend to get really into it, making it a big part of my literary identity. The two books in this category that I can currently recall are One of Us is Lying by Karen M, McManus and Nerve  by Jeanne Ryan. These two novels controlled my middle school years. I believe I read Nerve  at the end of my sixth grade year; which was technically elementary school for me, but has changed since then. Anyway back on topic, I was obsessed with Nerve for over a year and right when I found that book the movie came out. It was perfect timing and I tortured my family with talking about it. Similarly, my eighth grade year I read ...

     I was unaware of what the term CHAT meant when I had read it in the beginning assignments of this semester, but after looking into it I found out that it stands for  Cultural-Historical Activity Theory. I've noticed that it was mentioned in multiple of the articles that were assigned for reading. I'm not sure that I fully understand exactly what it means yet but hopefully I'll get a better understanding in class. In the powerpoint it defines it as, "a framework for investigating complex writing situations." It then specifies the 7 CHAT terms, which are production, representation, activity, ecology, distribution, socialization, and reception. The definitions of these specific terms helps me to understand a little better what exactly CHAT means but combining them all into the full idea still seems complicated.      After going over the powerpoint, I once again noticed that the term was mentioned. She defines activity theory as, "an exploration of ho...

      Uptake is loosely defined in the article, "A Great British Baking Adventure: Antecedent Knowledge, My Dog, and a Dry(ish) Cherry Cake" as, "the way we think about new ideas until they make sense to us (ISU Writing Program)." In my own opinion uptake means using your prior knowledge and applying it to new ideas as a way of making sense of the unknown. In our daily lives we use uptake all the time. Every new thing we encounter leads to us using our prior knowledge and skills to make it more familiar or overcome whatever it was. This is an especially helpful skill to be able to use in english because you are constantly reading and writing new and more complex things.