Cultural-Historical Activity Theory

CHAT, I would say it was the biggest topic of the semester. There is a million ways to describe CHAT. To begin the semester, I had no clue about this thing called CHAT. It was a whole new way of thinking for me. I was so used to the five paragraph essay. It is a confusing topic, but for me, the best way to describe it is as a way to write that analyzes the different situations involved in writing.

CHAT has seven different aspects. Production refers to all the aspects that went into creating the text. Representation refers to all of the ways the people who produce a text think about it and plan it. Reception deals with how the audience perceives the text and how they are influenced by it. Distribution is concerned about whom the text is given to and where the text can be found. Socialization refers to the interactions of people that were initiated by the creation or reading of the text. Activity is concerned with the actual activities that people engage in when they are creating a text. Ecology refers to the biological and environmental forces that exist and impact many forces of the text. These different aspects overlap and work together. For each project that we did, we had to do a CHAT analysis. We had to describe how each aspect can be seen in the genre.

Prior to coming to ISU, I had never heard of CHAT.