ABSTRACT
When we began the research from which this book derives, our major question was about the relationships between writing in school and writing in the workplace. Our answer to that question, and the conclusion we reach in this book, is summed up by our title: school and work are worlds apart. That conclusion, simple as it looks, was not easily come by, since it is contrary to all appearances. The book can be seen in one light as a documentation of the evidence and theoretical perspectives that led to our growing realization of this apartness and its consequences for the teaching and practice of writing. But the title of this book does double duty; for it is through our perception of writing as acting that we are able to justify our account of difference. Because writing is acting, it is highly contextualized, and it is the character of this contextualization that turns out to be the burden of this book.
