TEACHING WRITING IN A DIGITAL AND GLOBAL AGE 9

life.

Most of the misinterpretations of the concept came when it was extracted from Vygotsky

and became associated with Bruner’s (1978) notion of “scaffolding,” as others also have pointed

out (see especially Cazden, 2001 and Chaiklin, 2003). Most seriously, it shifted focus toward the

teacher and away from Vygotsky’s original interest in a learner’s potential and teaching-learning

interactions. This shift led to relatively rigid and non-interactive views of instruction.

Another perhaps more serious interpretive problem has arisen from merging the concepts

of learning and development. For Vygotsky, the two were different, and development, not

learning, was the point of the ZPD and indeed the point of his entire theoretical project.

Vygotsky saw development as qualitative shifts in both the “forms and content of thinking”

(Vygotsky, 1998, p. 32). In contrast, the ZPD is sometimes reduced conceptually to a focus on

small bits of learning or as a guide for “scaffolding” students within an imagined “zone,” the

goal being mastery of these small bits of “learning.” This focus stands in contrast to Vygotsky’s

more profound and longer-term process of development. A focus on development instead of

learning implies examining what develops as writers progress and conceptualizing the larger

project of teaching writing across time. We turn next to a fuller discussion of what Vygotsky

meant by development and its implications for the teaching and learning of writing.

Vygotsky’s Theoretical Project

The central question that Vygotsky addressed was how higher mental functions develop,

including the development of both written and oral language (Vygotsky, 1999), which he

considered to be psychological tools important for aiding the development of other higher

functions, such as abstractions and scientific concepts (see discussions by Cole, 1996; Wertsch &

Stone, 1999). The tool of language, as well as other tools that support development, originate in
TEACHING WRITING IN A DIGITAL AND GLOBAL AGE 10

the social world and are appropriated or internalized in the process of human development. What

is important about this formulation is that it privileges the social origins of thinking and

ultimately of development. Traditional psychologists of Vygotsky’s day, including Piaget,

thought differently, assuming that development took place through the biologically-based

maturation that occurs as infants naturally grow and change. Vygotsky, however, argued that

theories positioning development as only biologically determined were incorrect.

Vygotsky did not ignore the role of biology in development. Rather, he believed that even

the “lower” or “elementary” processes, such as those associated with physical growth (e.g.,

walking) and with early concept development (e.g., initial understandings of words) were not just

biologically determined but included a social component as well. Development of both lower and

higher forms depend on the social world and the culture and history of the spaces one inhabits. In

this way, the biological and the social come together, with the development of the higher

functions like writing involving “both an overlay on and a reorganization of more basic

psychological functions” (Vygotsky, 1997, p. 107). As Cole (1993) points out, “Vygotsky

believed that old [lower] forms continue to ‘dwell alongside’ the newer, higher forms” (p. 11)

and that these old forms might reappear across time.2 Development of the higher functions is

what educators aspire to for learners in school settings, especially as part of the introduction of

literacy.

Vygotsky further sees the development of higher mental functions as having

directionality, a movement toward imagined ends, and not just a process of change. One example

of directionality is Vygotsky’s notion of the move from what he refers to as “spontaneous” and

“scientific” concepts and the contexts in which they are most typically acquired, respectively

everyday life and formal schooling. Wells (1994) summarizes the difference between these two
TEACHING WRITING IN A DIGITAL AND GLOBAL AGE 11

types of Vygotskian concepts: “scientific concepts have four features which the former

[spontaneous] lack: generality, systemic organization, conscious awareness and voluntary

control” (p. 1).

Although Vygotsky’s theory demands an objective to move toward, imagined ends make

it all too easy to privilege particular means to particular ends as more desirable than others,

especially when members of one cultural group judge the accomplishments of another group.

Rogoff (2003) writes about the importance of separating value judgments from explanations and

of being attentive to how we make judgments when we think about the developmental move

toward desired ends (p. 16). Most dangerous are tendencies to think in ethnocentric ways. Rogoff

writes,

Key to moving beyond one’s own system of assumptions is recognizing that goals of

human development––what is regarded as mature or desirable––vary considerably

according to the cultural traditions and circumstances of different communities. (p. 18)

This valuing happens both across cultures, when the kind of thinking within one culture

is considered “more advanced” than that within another, as well as within cultures, when the

ways of thinking of one group or even an individual is considered “more advanced” than another.

More to the point, ways of thinking develop through participation in cultural activities, with the

needs of different kinds of thinking associated with different kinds of activities. School is one

such activity system, with ways of thinking associated with it (Cole, 1996; Tulviste, 1991).

In studies in the early 1930s in the Soviet Union, Vygotsky’s student Luria (1976) found

that illiterate peasants solved problems based on concrete experience while literate adults used

abstract, verbal, and logical experience. He concluded that the illiterates had not developed

abstract and hypothetical reasoning. However, Cole, Gay, Glick and Sharp (1971) show that non-
TEACHING WRITING IN A DIGITAL AND GLOBAL AGE 12

literates will not perform hypothetical reasoning if they have to state a conclusion but will if they

are asked only to evaluate the logic of a set of statements. Thus, the task was limiting for them

while it was a familiar task for literates who had gone to school. Luria’s conclusions about the

effects of literacy did not hold (see further critique in Rogoff, 2003, p. 39-41). Luria assumed

that literacy caused these developmental differences and implied that the absence of literacy

made such higher mental functions impossible. Vygotsky’s privileging of literacy becomes

problematic when its deficit is taken to imply the impossibility of certain kinds of development.

Importantly, development similar to the kinds claimed for writing have been found to be

supported through other cultural tools in some societies.

This is not to say that literacy has no cognitive effects. It is just that the effects are

somewhat particular and related to the kinds of literacy practices one engages in both in and out

of school (Scribner & Cole, 1981b). Cole (1996) explains, "It is essential to take into account the

fact that human activity involves elaborate and shifting divisions of labor and experience within

cultures, so that no two members of a cultural group can be expected to have internalized the

same parts of whatever ‘whole’ might be said to exist” (D'Andrade, 1989; Schwartz, 1978, 1990)

(p. 124). Missteps like those of Luria serve as a cautionary tale for over-claiming cognitive

benefits of particular activities, but not as evidence against the importance of having

directionality for the historical development of both the individual and the culture. Nor do

critiques of Luria’s study or Scribner and Cole’s later findings eliminate the potential power of

literacy as a psychological tool. Rather, our knowledge of these missteps should inoculate us

against assuming that the presence of particular kinds of literacy practices is requisite for

particular kinds of mental functioning.

Vygotsky’s concept of cultural-historical development applies not only to the

development of individuals but also to the development of cultures. His claim is that human

beings, individually and collectively, use their higher mental functions in ways that contribute to

the ongoing development of the cultural world itself, with new cultural forms of behavior

emerging as the culture develops. In this cultural-historical conceptualization, then, higher

mental functions are not something that only individuals accomplish. Over time, historically, the

cultural and individual planes interact recursively; societal development provides affordances for

individual development, which in turn contributes to further societal development and so on.

Cole (1996) explains these mutually occurring processes:

[C]ulture undergoes both quantitative change in terms of the number and variety of

artifacts, and qualitative change in terms of the mediational potentials that they embody.

And as a consequence, both culture and human thinking develop. (p. 114)

The tools, both ideal and material, provide the cultural medium that supports the development of

people, who in turn develop new tools that support the development of the culture.

Boesch (1997), in “The Sound of the Violin,” describes the development of one such

tool, the violin, across history. He shows clearly how cultural-historical development works, both

for the individual who is developing musical sounds and for the cultural world of music. Boesch

explains that early violins could be made to produce a certain kind of sound, but humans were

reaching for what they thought would be a more “beautiful” sound, an ideal sound that they had

never heard. They changed the instrument so that it could produce this imagined more

“beautiful” sound. They kept engaging in this same process over time. With each improvement

in their tool, violinists came to have new goals with respect to sound because of the new

capabilities of their new instrument. This iterative process is a story of both cultural-historical

development, including important changes in the possible sounds of music, and human
TEACHING WRITING IN A DIGITAL AND GLOBAL AGE 14

development, with humans changing their tool to produce what they found to be increasingly

beautiful sounds. As violin players learned to produce the new and what they considered more

beautiful sounds, they were able to play what they considered more beautiful and more varied

kinds of music. This in turn led them to desire something they perceived as even more beautiful.

Boesch thus shows how the cultural history of the tool of the violin influenced the sounds

that humans could produce across time; how people came to imagine new possibilities that they

couldn’t have imagined without changes in the violin that allowed them to hear something new;

and then how once new sounds were heard, people could imagine something new yet again. Over

time, as the violin developed, musical culture developed, including the cultural activity of

playing string instruments, which in turn led to further developments in the violin and in the

cultural organization of music.

Boesch’s discussion of the violin illustrates not just how the cultural-historical

development of higher functions is interwoven with the development of cultures and individuals

across time, but also the role that mediation with tools plays in that process. Tools, such as the

violin, mediate the process of developing as a musician and of changing the nature of musical

sounds and culture itself. Similarly, for written language, even beyond symbols that function as

tools, Vygotsky explains that written language is a powerful and specialized psychological tool.

Even though Vygotsky predates this digital, global age, with the metaphor of the violin in

mind, one can think about how he provides a framework for considering both the social-

historical development that led to digitalization and the new developmental possibilities for

individuals who live in times marked by great changes such as the ones being experienced today.

While we recognize that all tools are unevenly distributed and used, one of the important

functions of new digital tools, for those who have access to them, is that they serve as tools for
TEACHING WRITING IN A DIGITAL AND GLOBAL AGE 15

composing. They are cultural artifacts that, like the violin, have developed over time. And as

they continue to develop, they offer new opportunities for composing and for what we think of as

writing. Like the violin, over time newer and better digital tools have been created that can afford

new opportunities for communicating, opportunities we could not have imagined even 50 years

ago. Who would have thought everyday citizens would be collectively writing Wikipedia, and

that Wikipedia would supersede The Encyclopedia Britannica, The World Book, and door-to-

door encyclopedia salesmen? And now that Wikipedia exists as well as other sources of socially

created information through the World Wide Web, humans have devised new social

organizations for the distribution and creation of knowledge as well as for archiving that

knowledge. With these affordances, one can imagine different ways of accumulating,

synthesizing, creating, and presenting knowledge. To be sure, there is variation in access to

particular cultural tools and different value systems around the use of these tools within and

across cultures. Vygotsky’s theory demands that researchers study precisely how new tools and

writing are functioning and changing and how the development of individuals is affected by new

forms of writing that interact with and lead to changes in tools, thinking, and composing.

Even with new digital affordances, people still read and write conventional books, from

novels to academic treatises. People still develop knowledge through argument and debate.

People still make good use of physical library spaces. But it is also the case that physical libraries

are becoming insufficient as digital information becomes accessible easily and quickly to many

outside of the physical library, providing scholars of all ages, for example, the possibility of

acquiring much information almost instantaneously, without the need for browsing in the stacks

(see Report of the Commission on the Future of the UC Berkeley Library, October, 2013). Digital

libraries can allow for forms of presentation that show the searcher surrounding volumes. Digital
TEACHING WRITING IN A DIGITAL AND GLOBAL AGE 16

tools preserve much of what people value about spending time physically in the library but add

new affordances of easy search and easy access. With these changes in access to information,

people may, over time, have to learn to synthesize information more quickly and perhaps in new

ways as well as change the way they design and use the physical space of libraries.

Digital media has led to vast cultural development in the ways people use written

language to communicate, and that cultural development is more than mere change. Indeed, it

alters the ways in which people develop and grow. The new digital tools are not static; they are

developing, rapidly. And in turn, individual ways of learning and developing are likely not static

either. However, one cautionary note: digital tools are still unequally distributed in local and

global communities, and just as importantly, individuals in every culture, digitally-turned or not,

use the cultural tools at hand to make meaning, to represent themselves, and to do “necessary”

cultural work (Willis, 1990; see, for example, Stein’s [2004] classroom-based research with

English language learners in Johannesburg, South Africa where their tools for representation

included oral stories, handmade artifacts, and gesture). In the end, the job of researchers and

teachers is to account for and understand precisely how the social organization of the activity of

writing, in conjunction with new and old tools, have consequential effects on how young people

develop higher mental functions.

Vygotsky’s work continues to inspire learning theorists and educators. Wanting to

account for learning and development in heterogeneous social worlds filled with interacting

people and ideas, neo-Vygotskians like Engeström (1987, 1999) write about interacting activity

systems, filled with clashes and disruptions. In the process they moved their focus away from

individual and societal development to consider the importance of collective activity and the

struggles that people attempt to resolve when they work, play, and learn together (cf., Leont’ev,
TEACHING WRITING IN A DIGITAL AND GLOBAL AGE 17

1981). Engeström (1987), building on Bateson (1972), theorized that people who find themselves

in “double binds”—or situations in which there is no right answer and in which different ways of

thinking compete—are in a position to experience what he calls “expansive learning.” What

Engeström describes as “expansive learning” is much like what Vygotsky calls development,

although Vygotsky did not privilege dissonance or “double binds” as its impetus as Engeström

did. Although activity theorists typically have not focused their attention on analyzing language,

choosing instead to analyze the activity systems themselves, some writing researchers have used

activity theory as a framework for their studies. For example, Gutiérrez and colleagues (e.g.,

Gutiérrez, 2008; Gutiérrez, Bien, Selland, & Pierce, 2011; Gutiérrez, Larson, Encisco, & Ryan,

2007; Gutiérrez, Morales, & Martinez, 2009), working with children and undergraduates in after-

school programs, used the concept of competing activity systems to elaborate how the coming

together of these systems led to “expansive learning” (Engeström, 1987) of writing and literacy,

especially for students from nondominant communities.

Bakhtin’s Theoretical Project

Like the neo-Vygotskians, Bakhtin adds specificity about the underpinnings of

development but with a focus on the central role played by language, both written and oral.

Bakhtin focused on how humans struggle through dialogue to build meaning and senses of self in

relation to others through written and oral language. We note that Matusov (2011) opposes

Bakhtin’s construct of dialogicality to Vygotsky’s construct of development, seeing them as

irreconcilable. Although we see important differences as well, we argue that Bakhtin can be read

as aligned with rather than theoretically incompatible with Vygotsky. We see the following

commonalities. Both focused on the role that writing plays in the workings of the mind and saw

language and symbolizing as central to any discussion of how social and cultural processes are