ABSTRACT
This chapter examines what it means to call ourselves writers. It discusses the nature of writing itself, viewing it as a historically and culturally situated and constrained activity that has changed over time. The chapter describes the writing as technologized, as a product as well as a practice, as a mode of expression and representation and as a socially, culturally framed rhetorical act. It draws attention to Gees critique of literacy as a commodity, because you will see that the language in which it is couched resonates with the language used about literacy. By the late 1990s and into the first years of the 21st century, governments of English-speaking countries were acting as if there was a literacy crisis, especially when these countries eyed the performance of economic competitors in terms of cross-national literacy surveys. The surveys are conducted by the International Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement (IEA) and by the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD).
