Discussion Questions:
1. How might Russell’s definition of genre as a “typified tool-mediated response to conditions recognized by participants as recurring” be an improvement on notions of genre as types sharing certain formal features?
2. What is gained and lost by treating writing in general, as well as specific genres, as tools?
3. How does the concept of an activity system differ from that of a discourse community?
4. To what extent does Russell succeed in revealing “genre at work at the individual, dyadic, and collective levels”?
5. What is the significance of “deep contradictions” in an activity system?
6. How might we benefit from treating the classroom as a Zone of Proximal Development?
