1. Powell used a combination of the activity theory and the theories of self-representation and performance to explore how genres can simultaneously liberate and constrain and how students negotiate the various tensions they may encounter within an activity system.
2. The author examined the students' writing habits and their method and style of self-representation.
3. If genre means style of writing and goals in education, I believe that my peers take either the very similar angle of our professors, or the exact opposite. Because professors teach us all about the world and fill us with most of our knowledge on life, we tend to either love them or hate them, mimic them or mock them. For the most part, I would say that my peers tend to admire and closely follow their professors. If they dislike a certain one, they just don't even listen to what they are saying, their theories are in one ear and out the other.
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The idea that students go to one extreme or the other in (dis)identifying with their professors is interesting. It makes some sense if one considers that it's much easier to mimic or to ignore than it is to negotiate the middle ground between complete identification and complete resistance.
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