Activity Models of Writing Tasks in L2 Classrooms A review article

Within this study, I seek an understanding of the competing factors that influence writing teachers’ decisions. While activity theory is primarily the theoretical lens through which I intend to view writing pedagogy, the framework is also useful in informing my research design and analysis (Sannino, Daniels, and Gutierrez, 2009). Research methods organized with activity theory are often focused on qualitative explorations of everyday events in everyday contexts (Engestrom, 1999; Sannino, Daniels, and Gutierrez, 2009) such as writing instruction in English institutes. Because teachers are situated within complex settings within and beyond their classes, the activity theory methodology is useful as it encourages the researcher to maintain a focus on both the system view and the subject view, rather than treating them as separate entities (Engestrom et al, 1999). Therefore, two particular strengths of a methodology informed by activity theory are its focus on the settings or contexts in which individuals operate and its priority on thick description of the activity of the individual or group of individuals. According to Cole (1996), activity theorists study activities within “naturally occurring settings” as a means to reject a “cause-effect, stimulus-response, explanatory science” in favor of a focus on “the emergent nature of the mind in activity” and the “central role for interpretation” (p. xii). Further, Johnson (2003) explains that each setting within which an individual acts is made up of idiosettings, or “settings within settings” with their own goals and practices (p. 142). Research within activity theory also focuses on developing a thick description of the activity in order to “illuminate and further our own lives as understood and enacted within particular contexts and ways of being” (Kirschner Martin, 2010, p. 16). Therefore, one of the purposes of the current study is to provide thick description of five teachers’ writing pedagogy decisions within the settings and nested idiosettings of their teaching environment.