Journal Enrty 9

1. What is the writer trying to find out more about throught their research (what research question guides her work)?

The purpose of this study was to focus on how students negotiate various genres with which they come in contact. It examines how students' constructs of "self" are reflected in school genres and how their backgrounds, specific academic disciplines, and institutional goals affect those constructs. She asked the following questions:

1. In what ways do students experience a “double bind” (Russell, 1997) or tension or
contradiction where demands are placed on them by competing motives of the various
activity systems they encounter? How then, do students negotiate these competing motives
within the genres they encounter at their academic institution? In turn, are students’ identities
transformed, and if so, how?
2. How is the activity system of St. Augustine College stabilized and/or changed based on the
ways that students negotiate the various competing motives within this activity system
(which is itself comprised of several systems)?
3. How does student self-representation vary within and among genres at St. Augustine
College?
4. What does this variance reveal in terms of the work completed at St. Augustine?

2. How does the author collect the data she needs to answer her questions?

She conducted systematic observations and interviews within the complex system, and analyzed the various genres that students encountered there. She examined the multiple genres students encountered at St. Augustine College, and paid particular attention to the tensions and contradictions within their self-representations.

3. What sort of genres do you see your peers using as forms of "self representation"?
Some examples may be:

*How they write
*How they speak
*Their physical appearance
*How much they care for school and other things that i may care for
*Things of interest to them