The aim of the present study was to contribute knowledge about how adult L2 learners perceived their possibilities to use and develop the target language (Swedish) when formal language teaching was combined with placements. Situated in the context of Swedish for Immigrants (SFI), the study drew inspiration from action research and ethnographic methodology. A thematic analysis was conducted underpinned by the systemic-functional linguistic concepts of field, tenor and mode. The findings showed that the students highly valued interaction with L1 Swedish speakers outside of the classroom. Several of the students described rich opportunities to interact socially, which, however, also entailed anxiety about their status as L2 speakers. A few of the students reported accessing field-specific language and literacy practices that aligned with their current career goals. However, students with placements relating to kitchen, garage and warehouse work voiced feeling isolated and having little opportunity for social interaction. While students in the first of two course instances found it difficult to discuss and exemplify language they had learnt, a vocabulary assignment developed for the second course instance facilitated discussions about placement-related words and expressions. Implications for teaching are discussed, including using authentic examples of workplace discourse as preparation for placement visits.

Medvetenheten om språkliga dimensioner i ämnesundervisning har ökat det senaste decenniet genom forskningsstudier, pedagogisk litteratur och kompetensutvecklingssatsningar. Fokuset har till större delen legat på läsande och skrivande i andra ämnen än svenska och svenska som andraspråk. I det här blogginlägget vill jag belysa hur lärare hanterar språkliga stötestenar i arbete med romaner och bilderböcker.

In both current debates on the perceived crisis of young people’s writing and national research on writing instruction, there is a tendency to foreground oneparticular perspective on writing. Debaters focus on technical skills, while many researchers advocate a focus on function rather than form. Also, research on writing instruction in primary years of schooling is scarce. This article responds to the need for a more nuanced understanding of writing instruction in the primary years of schooling. Its particular focus is on the oral feedback given on letters written by students in Grade 3. The research aim is to explore and highlight movements between different perspectives on writing in the interaction. The study is based on transcribed audio recordings of nine feedback talks (1h30m) between a school librarian and Grade 3 students writing letters based on a reading of a children’s book. In the analysis of the data, Roz Ivanić’s discourses of writing are operationalized and visualized in a way which enables the detailed analysis of how oral classroom interactions relate to correctness, disposition, and the communicative context. In particular, this analytical tool highlights discursive shifts, for example between disposition and communicative function. Feedback focusing on the communicative  context is understood in light of Halliday’s contextual categories of field, tenor and mode.The writing assignment given to the students consisted of answering letters from parents seeking aid with misbehaving children. In doing this, they were expected to assume the role of the book’s protagonist, Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle. The letters they responded to had been written by peers in a previous, related assignment. The result of the analysis shows that the librarian underscored the importance of adhering to a prescribed disposition of the letter, with reference to different aspects of the communicative context. In particular, she underlined the importance of explaining why the students’ proposed solutions to children’s misbehavior would work (field) to convince and reassure the parents (tenor). Also, she drew attention to the need for explicitness in written communication, which relates to the contextual category of mode. As such, the results show a considerable interplay between disposition and communicative goals, which can be understood as discursive shifts. The students were also given feedback on syntax, interpunctuation, and spelling. This feedback was rarely related to the construction or communicative goals of the text. However, there were some exceptions, such as when the librarian commented positively on the use of exclamation marks reflecting the “energy” of Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle and guided the children in using a conjunction to give an explanation.In summary, the results highlight the potential of the interplay between different discourses of writing. It is suggested that the analytical lens developed and employed in the study can be used in other activities of writing instruction, for example teacher-led deconstructions of model texts. A more nuanced view of the interplay between textual forms and functions in on-going teaching is desirable to promote students writing and counteract the one-sided perspectives which can otherwise govern discussions about writing instruction.

Literature on thesis supervision emphasises collaborative approaches with strong and supportive relationships. Despite an increasing research interest in supervisory relationships, little cross-cultural research has been conducted on supervisory roles and relationships in expandingcircle countries. This study explores how thesis supervisors negotiate different rolesand relationshipsin supervision in English as an Additional Language (EAL) contexts. A multi-case study was employed in three contexts: a Swedish university, two Indonesian private universities, and an Indonesian public university. Semi-structured interviews were conducted withfourteenthesis supervisors. Thematic analysis and systemic-functional appraisal theory were used to analyse the discourse. Our findings revealed that supervisors expressed dealing with (a)symmetrical relationships with students and colleagues, dealing with different supervision roles, and managing priorities relating to intellectual development and instrumental goals. However, these dimensions of supervision were described differently in the three contexts. The Swedish supervisors expressed concernsabouthavingweak authority; meanwhile, the Indonesian private supervisors described frustrated attempts to form a closer relationship with the students, whereas the Indonesian public supervisors reacted to students trying to become too familiar. Furthermore, supervisors in the three contexts had to take different unwanted roles in supervision. The article concludes with implications for understanding situatedaspects ofsupervision.

Children use digital environments at an early age and should be supported from the start of school to a conscious and critical way of navigating the internet.Previous studies show that children have vague ideas about how the information has ended up on the internet, how it should be read and evaluated. In thisexploratory study, we investigated how children start an internet search, how they formulate their search query and what they pay attention to when the searchresult is obtained, as well as how they read the information from the screen. 15 eight-year-old children performed the searches in small groups, using one tabletin joint searches. The children's speech and screen activity were recorded. The data was analyzed with the help of Luke and Freebody's resource model to callin different dimensions of reading competence that are actualized when students initiate searches and navigate search results. The results show that thestudents can use speech and writing to quickly search for specific information. At the same time, they are disinclined to stop and reflect on the relevance,credibility, and sender of the search results. With interactional support, some students were able to identify the sender of the information and reason about which50type of sender might be credible. To reach a more developed thinking and awareness that digital information has a sender, teaching that promotes criticalinformation awareness and multimodal text competence is required. 

Research into the role of literature in the Nordic classroom has shown that literary texts are predominantly seen as a tool for the developing of literacy skills and often focus on the structural components of the text itself. This often leads to the equally important creative and playful aspects being sidelined. Addressing this imbalance, the present article argues in favour of creating opportunities for young learners to take more agency and promote creative dialogue and playful expression in classroom reading practicesthrough the framework of playworld (Swedish: lekvärlden) (Lindqvist, 1992, 1996). Specifically, this article attempts to answer the following questions: (1) how can oral and written interaction based on the reading of a children’s book be understood in terms of playworld; and (2) in what ways can the concept of playworld enrich the understanding of students’ and teachers' engagement with children’s books? The findings are based on a classroom study of a Swedish Grade 4 students, focusing on discussions and activities related to the reading aloud of Wegelius’s The Legend of Sally Jones. The results of this study have enabled us to shift from the dominant focus on individual readers and readings to the dialogic interplay in playworld between the children and the adult / teachers who creatively reworked and expanded upon the text. The concept of playworldis employed as a tool to empower both teachers’ and students’ creative engagement with literary texts in a way that builds on a collective imagination.

This study explores how graphical models, teaching resources and language arts curricula for primary school in Sweden represent features of narrative genre. Furthermore, it provides a conceptual and methodological approach for studying the recontextualization of genre knowledge in different educational contexts. We selected two particular models (the Story Face and the Obstacle Chart) because they are promoted by the Swedish National Agency of Education. We analyzed the models, curricula, and related teaching resources through Bernstein's concept of recontextualization fields, Martin's genre theory, and Kress and van Leeuwen's visual grammar. The results show that both graphical models use metaphors to evoke students' everyday experience and break down a narrative text to key story elements. Aligning with Swedish language arts curricula, the models de-emphasize the need to manage tension in narra-tives. Finally, the results show that the models' different ways of representing key story elements may be difficult for teachers and students to decode.(c) 2022 The Author(s). Published by Elsevier Inc. This is an open access article under the CC BY license ( http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ )

Introduction: Thesis supervision is a critical part of students’ academic literacy development. Previous research has shown different dimensions of this development with limited attention to cross-cultural aspects. In particular, there has been little research on how students and supervisors negotiate supervision practices in non-anglophone contexts. This study aimed to explore students’ and supervisors’ reported priorities and experiences regarding the provision and reception of feedback in English as an Additional Language thesis supervision. 

Method: We conducted a qualitative case study to illuminate supervisor’s and students’ experiences of supervision in Sweden and Indonesia. It involved 39 participants (14 supervisors and 25 students) from one Swedish and three Indonesian universities. One-on-one semi-structured interviews were conducted and analyzed thematically using Biesta’s functions of education, Habermas’ communicative action theory, and perspectives on academic literacy. 

Findings: Firstly, we found that Swedish and Indonesian supervisors had different feedback provision priorities. Swedish supervisors described prioritizing content-focused feedback to facilitate students’ socialization into academic writing. Conversely, most Indonesian supervisors expressed balancing content- and form-focused feedback with a greater emphasis on qualifying as English teachers. Despite these differences, supervisors in both contexts tended to isolate academic language use from discipline-specific values and practices. Secondly, students in both contexts largely expressed an instrumental orientation to achieving their goals and were frustrated by supervisors phrasing feedback as questions. Many students expressed unfamiliarity with necessary methodologies and theoretical frameworks, which made supervisors’ feedback difficult to decode. 

Discussion: Since only a few of the students viewed the feedback as a support for their process of learning, this study calls for a clear communication about the academic socialization intention through supervision. However, academic socialization cannot solely be the responsibility of supervisors but must be embedded in the curriculum courses 

Doctoral thesis supervision and its writing outcome in Anglophone countries has gathered a great research attention. Moreover, the collaborative supervisory relationship has been considered as an important aspect of doctoral students’ achievement and autonomy in thesis writing. Despite the similar student-supervisor model of supervision between doctoral and undergraduate students, cross-cultural research on undergraduate thesis supervision in the expanding countries seems still underrepresented. The presentation is based on a comparative study of Indonesian and Swedish supervisors’ expression about their experience in supervising undergraduate students to write a thesis in English, the students’ additional language (EAL). The research questions are:

In what ways do Swedish and Indonesian supervisors describe experiencing thesis supervision? In what ways do Swedish and Indonesian supervisors describe their relationships with students and colleagues?

Since previous research has discussed ideal practices of supervision involving students in dialogue and supporting their intellectual development, this presentation focuses on the exploration of the different challenges and considerations pertaining to this ideal as described by the supervisors in the three contexts (Swedish university, Indonesian public university, and Indonesian private university). This presentation highlights similarities and differences between supervisors in Sweden and Indonesia, and between supervisors in private and public Indonesian universities. It adds to previous research on supervision which are mainly conducted in the postgraduate or doctorate levels in the Anglophone context. Moreover, this presentation contributes knowledge of the supervisor's beliefs about their roles and relationships in three different contexts, with implications for what is seen as constituting a “good” supervision practice.

Accordingly, a qualitative case study with semi-structured interview technique was conducted with fourteen thesis supervisors (five Swedish and nine Indonesian). Thematic analysis was informed by systemic-functional linguistics from appraisal theory (Martin & White, 2005). It focused on analysing the discourses expressed by thesis supervisors related to their roles, relationship with students and colleagues, and values about supervision that are scrutinised through the use of modality.

The findings show that supervisors in the three contexts describe tensions related to imbalanced relationships with students and colleagues, supervisors’ various roles, and supervisors’ priority management regarding students’ instrumental purposes and their desired intellectual journey. Different concerns expressed by supervisors related to tensions in their supervisory relationship. Swedish supervisors described experiencing low authority over their students, Indonesian private university supervisors mentioned challenges in befriending students to create more symmetrical supervisory relationships. Meanwhile, Indonesian public university supervisors emphasised their unease related to students’ attitude for being too close to the supervisors. Different undesired supervisory roles recounted by supervisors such as being students’ editors, pseudo debt-collectors, and spoon feeders were necessitated either by institutional situations or personal commitment as the students’ thesis writing gatekeepers.

I denna kvalitativa studie undersöktes två lärares iscensättning av gemensamt återberättande av sagan Rödluvan och vargen som ett exempel på narrativ genre. Båda lärarna använde den grafiska modellen Berättelseansiktet i en storgruppsdiskussion i årskurs 1 i svensk grundskola. Studien sker med bakgrund i en textanalytisk studie som analyserade aktuella styrdokument, grafiska modeller samt annat läromaterial med inriktning mot narrativ text i tidiga skolår (Ridell & Walldén, 2023). Presentationen lägger särskilt fokus på respektive lärares intermodala undervisningspraktik där 1) olika uttrycksformer promptade aspekter av narrativ text och 2) förhandlade kring innehållet i sagan utifrån elevernas förslag.

Studien tillämpar ramverket design för lärande (DfL) samt ett socialsemiotiskt ramverk som innefattar genreteori och visual grammar. Med dessa utgångspunkter synliggörs både lärarnas aktiva bruk av multimodala resurser i undervisningsmomentet samt vilket kunskapsinnehåll avseende narrativa texter som främjades. För att urskilja ytterligare nyanser i lärarnas olika didaktiska iscensättning användes även Bernsteins inramning samt horisontell och vertikal diskurs.

Utifrån video- och ljuddata producerade i två klassrum studerades iscensättningen i form av olika visuella, verbala och gestikulära uttrycksformer samt lärarens sätt att utnyttja skrivtavlan och styra interaktionen med eleverna. Forskningsfrågorna lyder: Hur kan aspekter av narrativ genre bli visuellt, verbalt och gestikulärt promptat i iscensättning av textdekonstruktion och -rekonstruktion? Vilka metafunktionella dimensioner och genreteoretiska aspekter hamnar i förgrunden i förhandlingen av Rödluvan och vargen?

Tentativa resultat visar att lärarnas varierade iscensättning genom olika visuella representationer påverkade elevernas handlingsutrymme. Båda lärarna iscensatte en ideationellt orienterad dekonstruktion och rekonstruktion av sagan med fokus på karaktärer och händelseförlopp. Elevernas förslag på spänningsskapande interpersonella aspekter erkändes i huvudsak när de drev handlingen framåt.

Given young children's frequent use of the internet and the expectations formulated in policy documents such as the Swedish national curriculum, teachers need to promote critical awareness about information found online, even in the earliest years of schooling. Responding to the need for more information about how first-graders understand the internet, we report on findings from focus group interviews concerning what students in Grade 1 think the internet is and what kind of experiences and linguistic resources they draw upon to express their understanding. Based on thematic and systemic-functional linguistic analysis, the results show that the children mostly express an understanding of the internet as something concrete, such as an app, as something encapsulated in apps or hardware and, more generally, as an enabler for the use of different apps. Students connections to using YouTube and games are prevalent, and their understanding of the internet is shaped by experiences of screen interactions when using these apps. On rare occasions, students hesitantly tried to formulate abstract perspectives concerning what the internet is or what it means. Possible directions for promoting and researching a more abstract understanding in pedagogical practice are discussed.

This article focuses on how Grade 6 students interactionally make meaning out of subject-related language encountered in civics textbook material by searching for synonyms and engaging in discussions. Employing ethnographically-inspired methods, data was collected through observations and audio recordings of civics teaching in two linguistically diverse classrooms in which the students were taught in the majority language, Swedish. In the article, oral classroom interaction is perceived as a crucial part of the meaning-making social practice in which students' disciplinary literacy is developed. Key analytical concepts are discursive shifts and discursive mobility - the ability to move between and within different discourses. The results show that the use of online dictionaries promoted decontextualizing processes in which the students unsuccessfully tried to negotiate multiple abstract meanings that, in many cases, were unrelated to the disciplinary content. In other exchanges, the adults gave interactional support by contextualizing the words and expressions in content-relevant ways and pointing out recognizable parts of words. In some cases, the teacher instead drew attention to words that have different meanings, which complicated the content-relevant understanding of the words. Implications for working with subject-related vocabulary in ways which support rather than hinder disciplinary understanding are discussed.

Although the teaching of narrative texts in primary school is well researched, there is a lack of insight into how visual models and multimodal prompts are used by teachers to convey genre-specific knowledge. Therefore, we conducted a multimodal study of the teaching practices in two first-grade classrooms during joint re-tellings of the folktale Little Red Riding Hood and subsequent interactions around narrative genre. In both cases, the teachers used the graphical model The Story Face as well as a whiteboard canvas in their orchestrations. Data was collected in the form of audio and video recordings. Underpinned by a social semiotic framework combined with Bernstein’s concept framing, the analyses revealed that both teachers focused on story events and the story’s macrostructure while displaying different orientations in the use of verbal language and visual representations. This resulted in different emphases on either story-specific or more general features of narrative genre. Furthermore, the students showed an interest in iconic and suspense-building story dialogue, but this aspect was generally de-emphasized by the teachers’ use of verbal language and visual resources. Based on these findings, we discuss the significance of studying teachers’ differing orchestrations through overlapping modes.

Under de senaste decennierna har utbildningen i svenska för invandrare (sfi) blivit allt starkare kopplad till arbetsmarknaden. Samtidigt tyder tidigare forskning på att sfi-undervisningens relevans för språkligt deltagande utanför klassrummets väggar behöver stärkas (t.ex. Ahlgren & Rydell, 2020;Wedin & Shaswar, 2022). Denna presentation ger en praktiknära och kvalitativ belysning av en kommuns satsning på en sfi-kurs där klassrumsundervisningen integrerades med elevers praktik inom olika branscher. Undervisningen hade inspirerats av tidigare forskning om språkpraktik (Sandwall, 2013) som har visat behovet av atts kapa meningsfull transfer mellan praktikplats och klassrum. Eleverna fick därför språktränande uppgifter som de genomförde under veckovisa praktikdagar som de sedan redovisade inför klasskamraterna.

Presentationen utgår från följande frågeställningar: Vilka erfarenheter beskriver sfi-eleverna av att använda och utveckla målspråket (svenska) under språkpraktiken och lektionsmomenten? Vad kännetecknar klassrumsinteraktionen under ett specifikt moment som sökte skapa transfer mellan praktikplats och klassrum, nämligen elevers presentationer av en ordförrådsuppgift?

Forskningen följde en praktiknära och etnografiskt inspirerad ansats där forskaren och den deltagande läraren samarbetade. 20 sfi-elever ingick i studien som studerade kurs C och D. Undervisningen dokumenterades genom observationer, ljudinspelningar och intervjuer under två kurstillfällen som varade totalt 20 veckor. Tematiseringen av elevernas upplevelser av språkpraktiken inspirerades av situationsvariabler för språkanvändning som har utvecklas inom systemisk-funktionell lingvistik. För analys av klassrumsdiskussioner om ord eleverna hade valt ut från praktikplatserna användes semantiska begrepp från Legitimation Code Theory (Maton, 2013; Walldén & Någord Larsson, 2021). Resultatet visar att elever som praktiserade på äldreboenden och förskolor uppgav relativt rikliga språkanvändningsmöjligheter medan det motsatta fallet gällde för elever med branschval inom lager och kök. Under klassrumssamtalen kopplade till elevernas ordförrådsuppgift skedde en rik interaktion om situationsberoende betydelser av ord och uttryck som kan kopplas till olika språkliga domäner. Momentet öppnade upp för en kunskapsbyggande interaktion där både läraren och eleverna bidrog till att kontextualisera de olika betydelserna.

Denna rapport dokumenterar insikter från följeforskning inom projektet Trelleborg Yrkeskedjor på uppdrag av Arbetsmarknadsförvaltningen Trelleborg. Den belyser undervisning i svenska för invandrare som sökte koppla samman elevers branschpraktik med språkundervisning. 

Research on English as an Additional Language (EAL) academic acculturation has focused on international students as newcomers in English speaking countries and has frequently used a linguistically oriented approach. This research aimed to examine EAL thesis supervision as an academic socialisation practice in non-Anglophone context. We focused on exploring supervisors’ feedback provision priorities and students’ reactions to the feedback in one Swedish and three Indonesian universities. We contribute to the Nordic educational context by shedding light on thesis supervision as part of students’ dynamic academic socialisation. The research was conducted in response to the identified need of new strategies for academic literacy development to manage multicultural assets in the EAL academic writing and publication. We employed a multi-faceted view of academic literacy development, involving both cognitive activities and socially situated practice, integrated with. Biesta’ functions of education and Habermas’s Communicative Action concepts. Semi-structured interview was conducted with thirty-nine participants (14 supervisors and 25 students). The findings indicated different supervisors’ feedback provision priorities. Swedish supervisors explained focusing on content to strive for students’ socialisation and subjectification, while Indonesian supervisors mostly prioritise giving both form and content-focused feedback to target the function of qualification. A few Indonesian supervisors described focusing on socialisation in thesis writing and peer-reviewed publication. While supervisors in both contexts expressed striving for learning orientation through supervision, most students in both contexts described focusing on instrumental goals (finishing their thesis projects and getting degrees). Also, many students explained difficulties dealing with feedback in the form of questions. They indicated resistance to the socialisation process by employing strategic action (deleting or shortening the commented part to avoid further questions and revision). Only a few students viewed question-feedback as a communicative means of learning. Students’ responses signalled a lack of disciplinary literacy through unfamiliarity with research methodologies and theoretical framework that created problems in deciphering the supervisors’ feedback. Since the findings illustrate that students and supervisors have different feedback orientations, we call for increased clarity in communicating aims for thesis supervision. Also, the task of students’ academic literacy development and socialisation cannot fall on thesis supervisors alone. Pedagogical practices through embedded-curriculum programmes are required to foster students’ belonging to academic community and identity adaptation.

In the past several years, there has been a growing research interest in students’ opportunities to engage in and develop disciplinary literacies through writing. Mirroring developments in other countries, the Swedish national curriculum has required teaching with a more disciplinary focus since 2011. This puts various demans on students'  writing, such as constructing arguments based on source material and explaining causes and consequences of historical events. The presentation will focus on test-related writing practices in history teaching in Grade 6 in a Swedish school located in a socially disadvantaged and linguistically diverse area.

The presentation is based on research aiming to contribute knowledge about how students negotiate literacy expectations when writing answers to test questions in the teaching of history. The research questions are:

Which literacy expectations are conveyed by the written questions administered to the students in a final test and in activities leading up to the test?

How can the students written answers be understood in relation to the literacy expectations in the question posed to them?

Ethnographically inspired methods were used to document teaching activities, teaching material and students' text in a content area about the early modern period in Swedish history. The study spanned three months. Previous publications from this study have focused on the classroom interaction and the text material used in the teaching (e.g., Author, 2020; Author & Colleague, 2021). This presentation instead focuses on students' written responses to test questions based on 102 collected tests. The analysis was informed by disciplinary literacy and systemic-functional genre theory. It particularly draws on the discourse semantic system of periodicity (Martin & Rose, 2007) to highlight how the students manage the information flow in their texts, for example by introducing, unpacking and re-stating abstract and subject-related concepts. Another important point of reference is the learner's pathway through the genres of history (e.g., Coffin, 1997) which charts the progression from chronological recounts to explanatory texts that rely on causality. 

The findings show that the literacy expectations increased between homework tests used to preprare the students for a final test and the final test itself. While the homework tests expected the students to reproduce information about historical events and persons in the text material they studied, the final test required them to reason about events in terms of causes and consequences. The students mostly responded to this shift by adding more information about the events in an unplanned manner. However, some students managed to adapt their writing to accommodate the scaled-up demands by using a more planned approach to the writing and adjusting the information flow to accentuate the consequences and historical significance of events. On rare occasions, students used strategies which went beyond the written language, such as incorporating relevant information coveyed orally by a teacher and using multimodal representations. However, most of the students based their writing on a text material that provided limited input for the complex writing expected of them in the final test. Implications for classroom practice include the importance of modelling successful subject-specific writing strategies as well as providing sufficiently rich disciplinary input, through various modes, that the students can use for their written output. It follows that the writing must be understood as part of a disciplinary literacy practice. 

Coffin, C. (1997). Construing and giving value to the past: an investigation into secondary school history. In F. Christie & J. R. Martin (Eds.), Genre and institutions: Social processes in the workplace and schools (pp. 196-230). Continuum.

Martin, J. R., & Rose, D. (2007). Working with discourse: meaning beyond the clause. Continuum.

Walldén, R. (2020). "It was that Trolle thing" Negotiating history in grade 6: A matter of teachers' text choice. Linguistics and Education, 60. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.linged.2020.100884  

Walldén, R., & Nygård Larsson, P. (2021). “Can you take a wild guess?” Using images and expanding knowledge through interaction in the teaching and learning of history. Linguistics and Education, 65. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.linged.2021.100960  

”Lots of things are missing”: Genre-theoretical perspectives on adult second-language students working with feedback and argumentative texts.

The article contributes knowledge about functional aspects of adult second-language students working with writing feedback and argumentative texts. It was conducted in basic adult education, which is underrepresented in writing pedagogy research. The material consists of recorded feedback discussions in small groups and the student texts the discussions were based on. The study highlights the aspects of text the students focused on in the discussions and the aspects that could further strengthen the argumentation. In the analysis, systemic-functional genre theory is used. The result shows that the students identified areas of improvement based on the genre structure the teaching had focused on. However, the students had difficulties in identifying how the genre structure could be developed in a functional way. The study gives theoretical tools to highlight patterns of language on a local text level to support second-language students writing development.

This article concerns the relationship between general literacy skills and engagement with subject-specific content in classroom practice. The aim is to contribute knowledge about how enactment of reading strategies impacts classroom discussions about science texts. For 10 weeks, the researcher conducted observations and audio recordings of strategy-focused text discussions in Grade 4 physics and biology. The strategies employed were as follows: text knowledge, looking at text features and using prior knowledge. The analysis of the transcribed recordings and relevant parts of the textbook material was informed by Bernstein’s sociology of education and a social semiotic view of disciplinary literacy practices. The result shows that reading strategies were foregrounded in discussions about texts in ways which created and upheld boundaries to related content, activities and texts. Notably, the teacher and the students discussed single pages of science textbook material without considering how meaning conveyed by images and writing relates to other pages by, for example, bringing technical knowledge closer to everyday experience or by condensing meanings in a technical way. The study shows the potential of adhering to the information flow between given and new on textbook spreads to understand shifts between concrete and technical meaning. 

Tidigare studier har visat den muntliga interaktionens betydelse för att främja elevers språk- och kunskapsutveckling i olika ämneskontexter. Det kontextuella stöd klassrumssamtalen erbjuder är särskilt viktigt i klassrum där undervisningen bedrivs på elevers andraspråk. Trots det tilltagande intresset för ämneslitteracitet och språkliga dimensioner i ämnesundervisning finns det relativt lite forskning som anlägger språkliga perspektiv på elevers möte med skönlitterära texter. En sannolik förklaring är den traditionella uppdelning mellan språk och litteratur som har inspirerat konferenstemat, Språk och litteratur – en omöjlig eller skön förening? Den aktuella presentationen bygger på en studie av en lärares högläsning av den prisbelönta bilderboken Legenden om Sally Jones i en språkligt heterogen årskurs 4. Etnografiskt inspirerade metoder användes för att dokumentera högläsningen i två undervisningsgrupper med fokus på följande forskningsfrågor: 1) Vilka diskursiva strategier använder läraren för att främja förståelsen av skönlitterärt språkbruk under högläsningsaktiviteter, 2) Vad kännetecknar de skönlitterära ord och uttryck som läraren fokuserade på? För att besvara dessa frågor analyserades transkriberade ljudinspelningar utifrån perspektivet diskursiv rörlighet med hjälp av verktyg från systemisk-funktionell lingvistisk och legitimation code theory. Resultatet visar att läraren under högläsningen gjorde många omformuleringar som antingen utvidgade eller förenklade det skönlitterära språket. De utvidgande strategierna var särskilt framträdande och bestod av såväl klargörande omformuleringar som mer diskreta tillägg av vardagsspråklig karaktär. Det skönlitterära språk läraren fokuserade på var dels specialiserade ord och uttryck, dels formuleringar som kan kopplas till skönlitterära beskrivningar. De diskursiva strategiernas roll för att utvidga elevernas språkliga repertoarer och främja deras förståelse och engagemang vid gemensam läsning av skönlitterära texter diskuteras.

Although discussion-based approaches to literature have been researched extensively, there has been little qualitative research on read-aloud discussions focusing on specific aspects of literature. Moreover, considering the current bias towards comprehension and analytical skills in language arts curricula, an ongoing discussion about different dimensions of literary understanding in classroom practice is necessary. Therefore, the present study seeks to contribute knowledge about possibilities for literary understanding in character-focused classroom discussions. Data, comprised of field notes and transcribed audio recordings, were collected throughout 12 lessons in a Swedish Grade 4 during the reading aloud of the picture book Legenden om Sally Jones (The Legend of Sally Jones). The analysis was guided by thematic content analysis and reader-response theories, enabling a broad view of literary understanding. The result shows that character-focused discussions promoted evaluating the characters, making inferences, and considering important events. Occasionally, the students made analytical remarks about how the story worked. In addition, the students were encouraged to empathise with the characters while making connections between the text and their lives. Furthermore, the students drew on intertextual knowledge to use the text in creative expressions involving pleasurable narrative deaths. Implications for teaching and language arts curricula are discussed.

This study illuminates a teacher's discursive strategies for promoting understanding of literary language in a linguistically diverse Swedish classroom. By means of field notes and audio recordings, a Grade 4 teacher's read-aloud of the award-winning picture book The Legend of Sally Jones was documented and analyzed employing concepts from Systemic-Functional Linguistics and Legitimation Code Theory. Combining quantitative and qualitative approaches, the findings show that the teacher used a rich variety of discursive strategies to make specialized terms and literary descriptions available to the students. Apart from using question–answer strategies and commenting on the text in clarifying ways, the teacher made linguistic alterations to either expand or simplify the literary language. The expansive strategies were particularly salient, entailing clarifying paraphrases or subtly infused additions to expand literary meaning. The significance of the strategies to support students’ understanding of literary language and immersion in stories is discussed.

In this contribution, we explore something rarely reported on in research on children’s literature: how an old children’s book is re-appropriated and altered in ongoing teaching practice. The material consists of the book used in instruction, a Swedish translation of Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle (Tant Mittiprick), and transcribed audio recordings collected throughout six weeks of teaching. Participants include a librarian, who conducted the lion’s share of the discussions based on the books, two teachers, and two groups of Grade 3 students. The analysis is conducted based on Langer’s theory of building literary envisionments and the concept of the “third space”. The findings show that the students’ initial reception of Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle, playfully articulated in the classroom discussions, is shaped by literary stereotypes of old women and connections to everyday experiences. This reception is partly acknowledged by the adults. Thus, this shows the potential of the meaning making process through join negotiation of the third space—connecting prior knowledge and experience to the book. However, the librarian’s evaluations of student responses reinforce a particular didactic reading of the character as someone firm and knowledgeable, playing down the whimsical and silly characteristics of the protagonist. In reading the book aloud, the librarian made significant alterations to the text. With respect to literary language, the librarian provided numerous paraphrases and elaborations which served to support the students in making meaning of the book. More drastic alterations of the text served to avoid reinforcing outdated values, for example antiquated gender roles and references to physical punishment. While the paraphrases of literary terms created opportunities for negotiating the third space and learning about literary language, the sanitised reading of the book with respect to values failed to capitalise on opportunities for contextualising the book and making intertextual connections.

This article responds to the need of further qualitative insight into teachers’ supporting students’ factual reading by introducing reading strategies. Inspired by ethnographic methods and action research, the material of the study consists of observations and audio recordings (20 lesson) ofteaching in Grade 4 which integrated the subjects Swedish and Science (Physics and Biology). The analysis is mainly based on Langer’s stances for building knowledge in academic disciplines and a social-semiotic perspective inspired by Macken-Horarik’s knowledge domains. The findings show that the classroom interaction involved considerable attention to both the features of the disciplinary texts, verbal as well as visual, and the process of reading. The reading practice allowed the students to share previous experiences and discover a need for new information. However, the teacher and the students largely relied on informal metalanguage and foregrounded connections to everyday experience, rather than using a more elaborate metalanguage to explore how knowledge is construed from the perspective of physics and biology. Implications for teaching reading strategies in ways which promote students’ engagement with disciplinary content are discussed.

This qualitative study focuses on Grade 6 students’ possibilities to engage in disciplinary writing practices in history teaching in a school located in a socially disadvantaged and linguistically diverse area. The aim is to contribute knowledge about how students negotiate different literacy expectations in the teaching. The researcher used ethnographic methods to follow one teacher and two groups of Grade 6 students for 12 weeks’ teaching about the Vasa era in Swedish history. The material used consists of samples of students writing, parts of the text material they studied, and written questions they answered in tests and pre-writing discussion. In the analysis, systemic-functional linguistics (SFL) and thematic content analysis were employed to develop categories of literacy expectations based on the written questions. SFL was also used to analyze samples of the students’ writing and relevant textbook material. The findings show that the expectations increased in a final test because most questions required causal reasoning. In contrast, the questions used in text discussions and homework tests conveyed a variety of literacy expectations, with an emphasis on chronological reconstructions of events. While some students adjusted their writing to causal reasoning, others relied on a reconstruct approach that adhered closely to the simple text material that was chronologically structured. Outlier examples showed students using multimodal representations, a substitute teacher’s oral elaboration on a text, and resources of learner language in their answers. Implications for teaching that support all students’ engagement in disciplinary practices of history are discussed. 

Grafiska modeller har länge varit en del av läs- och skrivundervisningen i grundskolans tidigare år. Med den nya läroplanen (LGR22) skrivs de explicit fram som ett didaktiskt verktyg i tidig svenskundervisning. Trots att modellerna som dessa redan är undervisningspraktiskt frekventa är forskning kring modellernas roll i konstruktion och rekonstruktion av text ytterst begränsad. Denna studie tar ett socialsemiotiskt grepp om två grafiska modeller för att utforska hur de representerar narrativa texter och centralt innehåll i gällande kursplaner. Bärande teoretiska ingångar är Martin och Roses genreteori, Kress och van Leeuwens visuella grammatik och Bernsteins om teori om rekontextualiseringfält.  

I studien undersöker vi de två grafiska modellerna Hinderschemat och Berättelseansiktet, som genom Skolverkets Läslyftet lyfts fram som goda exempel i undervisningsprocesser kring narrativ text. Vi studerar dessa grafiska modeller som representation av narrativa textelement i relation till flera kontexter: 1) formuleringar i nuvarande (LGR11) och kommande (LGR22) kring undervisningsinnehåll och kunskapskrav i svenska och svenska som andraspråk upp till årskurs 3, 2) hur de presenteras i artiklar och filmklipp som en del av Läslyftet, samt 3) hur de skrivs fram i läromedel och lärarhandledningar som presenterar dem.   

Preliminärt resultat visar en variation mellan modellernas bruk av metaspråk i relation till begreppsapparaten i kursplanerna samt en användning av metaforer för att göra modellerna interaktionellt tillgängliga för yngre elever. Representationen av narrativa element motsvarar kursplanerna så till vida att karaktärer och kronologiska händelser sätts i förgrunden medan potentiella evaluerande genresteg som skapar dramaturgi genom att reagera på händelser saknas. Berättelseansiktet gör en särskilt bokstavstrogen representation av kursplanerna men den visuella analysen visar den komplexa tolkningsuppgift lärare och elever står inför när modellen ska användas i klassrumspraktiken. Elevernas möjlighet att praktiskt använda sig av modellerna begränsas dessutom av en liten skrivyta. 

This contribution explores how subject positions and perspectives are negotiated in the discursive practices of teaching social studies. The study involved a teacher and a group of second-language learners in Grade 6, the data being gathered by observations, voice recordings, and collection of teaching materials throughout seven weeks. The analysis, drawing upon discourse theory and sociological theories of education, is conducted from the perspective of Critical Discourse Analysis. The result, highlighting a curriculum area about living conditions, shows how Western-centric beliefs about a divided world were perpetuated both during introductory activities and in the searching for information about different countries. This mainstream meaning perspective was also sustained when the teacher modelled ways of using language for expressing content knowledge. Throughout, the migrant language learners were positioned as privileged Swedish citizens. Implications for shaping discursive practices of teaching in ways which builds on students’ diverse knowledges and experiences are discussed. 

Exploring how the information flow of social studies textbook spreads is negotiated in teacher-led interaction, the concern of this study is the conscious and critical use of teaching material in diverse student groups. The study involved a teacher and her Grade 6 students in a school with many migrant language learners. The data was gathered by observations, field notes, voice recordings, and the collection of teaching materials. Using social semiotic theory of visual design, the analysis of the textbook used in instruction shows that the layout perpetuated a Western-centric view of a divided world, along with an individualistic and anthropocentric view of environmental sustainability. The oral interaction, highlighting different text elements, largely reinforced the meaning perspectives promoted in the textbook. However, on occasion, the students were positioned to take a more analytical stance. Implications for using knowledge about information flow in textbooks to promote critical literacy practices in teaching are discussed.

This article contributes knowledge about disciplinary literacy practices in school history, with a particular focus on how key subject-related concepts are visually and orally represented and negotiated in teacher- student interaction. Based on a classroom study of history teaching in a linguistically diverse classroom in Grade 6, we use social-semiotic theories to analyze properties of the images themselves and how they are employed as resources in oral interaction, with particular focus on students’ potential involvement in discursive shifts between everyday and disciplinary wordings. The results show that decontextualized, generic images, particularly those of abstract concepts, can obstruct students’ participation in subject- related discourse. Students’ discursive mobility can also be limited by interaction-driven guessing games about key subject-related concepts and misleading use of everyday language. The results also show how L2 students’ creative use of linguistic resources, connections to learners’ prior knowledge, and reiteration of subject-related concepts can constitute valuable parts of discursive shifts. Implications for using images and oral interaction in ways that support disciplinary learning in history are discussed.

I denna studie undersöker jag litteracitetspraktiker i en årskurs 3 när en skolbibliotekarie leder högläsning av barnboken, Tant Mittiprick, och följer upp läsningen med enskrivuppgift. Empiriska data har insamlats genom observationer och transkriberadeljudinspelningar. I analysen integreras ramverk för litteracitetspraktiker och språkligametafunktioner samtidigt som det kusliga (umheimlich) synliggörs som ett barnboksspecifikt inslag. Resultatet visar att ett förståelsearbete under högläsningssamtalen försvidare i det skrivpedagogiska upplägget, där eleverna skriver brev till varandra och träderin i olika roller baserade på boken. Under genomgångar och återkopplande samtal görseleverna uppmärksamma på hur de behöver utveckla ett relevant innehåll, använda enpassande röst och följa ett ändamålsenligt informationsflöde. Möjligheten att förankrabåde läsandet och skrivandet i en kritisk och kreativ förståelse för barnbokens framställning och typiska drag diskuteras.

Exploring spoken interaction in the teaching of texts and content knowledge to linguistically diverse Grade 6 students, this article responds to the need of a more nuanced understanding of how different patterns of interaction function in knowledge-building classroom practices. The study is based on observations and transcriptions of recorded classroom interaction in different school subjects. The analysis is based on theoretical frameworks of communicative approaches, knowledge domains and discursive mobility. The result shows how patterns of classroom interaction are connected to important functions, such as building up prior knowledge, reminding students of key disciplinary concepts,reinforcing meanings in disciplinary texts, problematizing different aspects of how subject content is represented and enabling the diverse students to connect the subject content to personal experiences and process it with innovative use of the target language. The result also shows that movements towards a disciplinary discourse can be promoted by grounding the interaction in written texts and hindered by less functional use of everyday language.

Denna studie svarar mot behovet av forskning om hur lärare kan stödja elevers ämnesspecifika litteracitet i språkligt heterogena klassrum med fokus på skrivandets roll. Tidigare forskning har belyst att det ofta saknas strukturerade former av textarbete (t.ex. Lindh, 2019; Olvegård, 2014) och hur nationella prov ställer eleverna inför skriftspråkliga utmaningar (t.ex. Staf & Nord, 2018). Mindre uppmärksamhet har ägnats åt undervisning där läraren leder ett strukturerat arbete med texter för att stödja eleverna inför exempelvis provskrivande. Syftet med föreliggande studie är därför att bidra med fördjupad kunskap om litteracitetsförväntningar i historieundervisning. Utgångspunkt tas i följande frågor: Vilka litteracitetsförväntningar är påtagliga i prov samt provförberedande undervisningsaktiviteter? Hur hanterar eleverna dessa förväntningar i sitt skrivande?

Ett rikt empiriskt material bestående av elevtexter, läromaterial och transkriberade ljudinspelningar insamlat i en språkligt heterogen årskurs 6 har gjort det möjligt att utforska de litteracitetsförväntningar eleverna möter i olika undervisningsmoment, såsom textsamtal, antecknande, läxprov och slutprov. I en tidigare studie på samma material (Walldén & Lindh, 2021) undersöktes olika syften och mål med det skrivande läraren skapade förutsättningar för. Föreliggande studie fäster ett större avseende vid texter eleverna producerade.

Ett teoretiskt tolkningsramverk inspirerat av systemisk-funktionell genreteori (Martin & Rose, 2008) och skrivhandlingar med utgångspunkt i Skrivhjulet (t.ex. Lindh, 2019) har använts för att klassificera olika frågor som eleverna skulle besvara och för att analysera elevernas texter. Det preliminära resultatet visar att aktiviteter såsom tankeskrivande genom anteckningar, textsamtal och läxprov av övningskaraktär till viss del tycktes stödja elevernas provskrivande. Samtidigt var det påtagligt att förväntningarna stegrades i det avslutande och betygsättande prov läraren gav. Jämfört med läxproven och de frågor som utgjorde utgångspunkt för textsamtal, som ofta pekade mot att rekonstruera eller omformulera stoff från läromedelstexter, ställde slutprovet större krav på att resonera utifrån orsak och verkan. Dessa stegrande förväntningar hanterade eleverna på olika sätt.

Lindh, C. (2019). I skrivandets spår: elever skriver i SO. Malmö universitet.  

Olvegård, L. (2014). Herravälde. Är det bara killar eller? Andraspråksläsare möter lärobokstexter i historia för gymnasieskolan. Göteborgs universitet.  

Staf, S., & Nord, A. (2018). Geografi-och historieämnenas literacy på prov: en kritisk analys av literacyförväntningarna i två nationella prov för samhällsorienterande ämnen för årskurs 9. I D. Wojahn, C. Seiler Brylla, & G. Westberg (Red.), Kritiska text- och diskursstudier (pp. 217–249). Södertörns högskola.  

Walldén, R., & Lindh, C. (2021). Skrivpraktiker i historieämnet: Strukturerat textarbete i undervisning om Vasatiden. Nordidactica - Journal of Humanities and Social Science Education, 11(1), 54–79.  

The aim of this article is to contribute knowledge about how figurative language from literary texts is negotiated through oral interaction in second-language instruction. The material consists of transcriptions of recordings from a classroom study of basic adult second-language instruction involving two teachers and their two student groups. Theories of semantic waves and discursive mobility are used to explore and visualize discursive shifts between concrete and condensed abstract meanings. The results show a varied use of linguistic resources, where students’ contributions often serve as a bridge between the teachers’ concrete examples and abstract paraphrases in which lexical metaphors interplayed with grammatical metaphors. In some exchanges, characters and events in the literary texts were significantly expanded upon in the interaction as they were used as contextual resources. The study sheds light on second-language instruction as a dual disciplinary literacy practice, involving both language learning and the study of literary texts.

Within research into second language instruction, there has been a major focus on how to scaffold learners' acquisition of different disciplinary literacies. A central question, reflected to a varying degree in approaches such as genre pedagogy, content-based instruction and CLIL, is how the linguistic dimensions of dealing with instructional content can be made explicit to the learner. However, limited attention has been given to second -anguage learners' negotiating content belonging to the language they are studying. My presentation will be dedicated to this less explored form of disciplinary literacy. Drawing upon a classroom study of adult intermediate second-language instruction, I will employ SFL (systemic-functional linguistics) and LCT (legitimation code theory) to explore how two teachers involved their students in classroom work with literature. Based on observations, voice recordings and collected teaching materials, I will show how the teachers and the students negotiated subject content such as metaphors, narrative structure and linguistic style. In particular, I will highlight discursive shifts in classroom interaction between concrete/everyday and more abstract/metaphorical ways of using language as the teachers and the students discussed formulaic language encountered in the novels. In addition, I will show how these discussions related to the comprehension and interpretation of the literary texts.

In this article, we explore writing as a recurring and structured practice in the teaching of history. A teacher and her Grade 6 students were followed for 12 weeks’ teaching about the Vasa era. The material consists of field notes, transcribed voice recordings, teaching material, and samples of students’ writing. Drawing on the sociology of education, functional theories of writing, and concepts of historical thinking, the result shows that the teacher prioritized organizing information about the era while also, through writing based on images, creating opportunities for imagining, exploring and participating in content-related interaction. Social semiotic analysis highlights how the students employed different ways of taking notes explicitly modelled by the teacher. While the writing practices created some opportunities for learning about important events, understanding the historical significance of the Vasa era, and approaching a historical perspective, ethical dimensions and critical examination of evidence were de-emphasized. Implications for using writing in critical literacy practices of school history are discussed.

Departing from the premise of ‘death of the author’, this contribution aims to study children’s active participation in the reconstruction and re-appropriation of old and arguably outdated children’s book from 1940’s. The study centered around forty Year 3 students in Southern Sweden who read Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle, a book first published in 1947, together with their teachers and a librarian. In a process resembling Gunilla Lindqvist’s “Playworld”, both children and adults work together to create a more modern iteration of the book. While the librarian provided numerous paraphrases and elaboration to facilitate students’ meaning making of the book, the students were also encouraged to contribute with their own personal experience and intertextual references from their surroundings. This join negotiation resulted in a collective repository from which the students could draw upon in their reimagination of the book through writing letters to the main protagonist. The result of the analysis also highlights how the reading aloud of the book resulted in a sanitized version, which respect to for example representation of gender, which diminished the potentials for a critical and contextual understanding of the book. Implications for engaging children in the reading of older books in ways which treats them as readers and makers in their own right are discussed.  

De olika medierande resurser som erbjuds i undervisning har en stor betydelse för det ämneslärande som möjliggörs. Språkligt heterogena elevgrupper anses gynnas av en undervisning som erbjuder visualiseringar, rikliga möjligheter till samtal och ett strukturerat arbete med ämnesspecifika begrepp och texter. Det är viktigt inte minst för undervisning i historia som, likt andra SO-ämnen, kännetecknas av ett abstrakt språkbruk samtidigt som ämnet ställer särskilt höga krav på en kritisk textförståelse. Möjligheterna för att iscensätta en språk- och kunskapsutvecklande undervisning i historia i tidigare skolår är dock otillräckligt belyst. I vår presentation kommer vi därför rapportera från en klassrumsstudie i årskurs 6 på en språkligt heterogen skola under ett arbetsområde om Vasatiden. Regelbundna språkdidaktiska inslag i denna undervisning var helklassamtal om visualiserade ämnesrelaterade ord, textsamtal i grupper och läsloggsskrivande om ämnesrelaterade bilder som följdes upp i helklass. Analysen av klassrumsinteraktion och undervisningsmaterial grundar sig på teoretiska ramverk för ämneslitteracitet och diskursiv rörlighet. Resultatet visar hur läraren söker bygga upp elevernas förståelse för arbetsområdet genom öppna samtal kring texter och bilder där olika perspektiv på historiska händelser och nyckelfigurer intas. I samtal om ämnesrelaterade ord är kunskapsutvecklande potentialer påtagliga när den muntliga förhandlingen pendlar mellan vardagliga och mer abstrakta formuleringar och ger eleverna utrymme att formulera en förståelse genom egna innovativa språkliga uttryck. Samtidigt visar resultatet hur förenklade bilder och vardagsspråkliga formuleringar kan motverka elevernas möjligheter att använda sig av ett ämnesspecifikt språkbruk. Interaktionens kunskapsutvecklande potentialer påverkas också av hur samtalen kopplas till de texter som används i undervisningen samt av hur texterna som sådana representerar att ämnesinnehåll. Studien belyser komplexiteten i att stödja kunskapsutveckling genom interaktion och ger en grund för en mer nyanserad förståelse av hur bilder, texter och samtal kan samspela och användas på ett medvetet sätt i ämnesundervisningen.

In this article, I highlight how two teachers seek to scaffold second language learners’ use of language and engagement with texts in Grade 1 and 6. The aim is to explore the communication of metaknowledge in classroom discourse, more specifically, the communication of knowledge about language and metacogni-tive reading strategies. Two teachers participated in the study, and data were gathered through observa-tions, voice recordings, and the collection of teaching materials. Bernstein’s sociology of education is operationalized to reveal different aspects of framing during teaching activities in second language teaching and geography. Drawing upon systemic-functional linguistics, I show how metaknowledge was fore-grounded by the teacher in ways that sometimes de-emphasized the subject-related texts and concepts expected to be at the center of the teaching. An important empirical finding is that the foregrounding of metaknowledge such as features of the language and cognitive reading strategies in teaching can result in a pseudo-visible modality of pedagogy that provides insufficient scaffolding for dealing with subject-related texts and participating substantially in classroom discourse. Implications for teaching are discussed.

This article aims to contribute knowledge of how literacy practices are actively shaped in the teaching of history. One teacher and her two groups of Grade 6 students were followed during a content area spanning 12 weeks that focused on the Vasa era in Swedish history. The collected material consists of field notes, transcripts of peer group and whole-class interaction, samples of students’ writing, and documented teaching material. Based on theoretical frameworks of literacy and classroom interaction, the analysis of the findings shows how the teacher, using resources such as texts, images, and one epi-sode of a documentary series, facilitated the students’ initial immersion in the historical period and supported their developed understanding. The teacher is shown to employ a dialogic communicative approach while also introducing more abstract and content-relevant perspectives. Although the teacher positioned the students to consider representations of key historical figures, opportunities to critically analyze texts as historical sources were limited. The implications for shaping literacy practices in ways which promote Grade 6 students’ development of disciplinary literacy in history are discussed.

Drawing upon studies conducted in Sweden, this article discusses possibilities and limits of implementing genre pedagogy in content instruction. The wider educational concern is how knowledge of genre and language can be used to promote a deeper engagement with content knowledge. The linguistic theory underpinning genre pedagogy and the pedagogic-practical teaching/learning cycle is explained. Then, two empirical studies of genre-based teaching in Geography in Grade 6 are reviewed, with a particular focus on the texts used as models for the students’ own writing. The studies show two contrasting sides of genre-based intervention: one in which generic structures and other features of texts are used productively to engage with content knowledge and one in which attention to generic structure and logical connections comes at the expense of the negotiation of content knowledge. The article concludes with recommendations for implementing genre pedagogy.

Previously, there has been little research conducted on how teachers and adult second language learners negotiate the challenge of reading authentic novels in the target language. This qualitative classroom study explores literacy practices in adult intermediate second language instruction, involving two teachers and their diverse student groups over four weeks of work with literature. The material has been generated during weekly book discussions, through observations, voice recordings and the collection of texts and other teaching materials. The result shows a strong orientation towards meaning-making, which was scaffolded by the teachers directing attention to language, style and narrative structure. Thus, different kinds of literacy practices were interconnected. Although practices of critical text analysis were not prioritised by the participant teachers, it is shown how the students used their diverse experiences and knowledge to read both 'with' and 'against' the grain of the text. Implications for teaching and steering documents are discussed.

A crucial issue for literacy research is how teaching practices are shaped to promote diverse learners’ en- gagement with content knowledge and use of disciplinary language. In this article, based on a classroom study in Sweden, I explore the teaching of two historical events where the participant Grade 6 teacher created opportunities for writing and peer interaction in the content area. Using discourse analysis in- formed by systemic-functional linguistics, the study contributes to existing research by highlighting the role of teachers’ text choices in the shaping of disciplinary literacy practices in the teaching of history. The texts chosen and rejected by the participant teacher are analyzed and put in relation to transcripts of peer interaction and samples of students’ writing. The results show that the texts chosen – unlike those rejected –largely relied on everyday linguistic resources. As the students’ peer interaction and writing closely mirrored the texts presented to them, their opportunities to use the resources of abstract language commonly associated with school history seemed restricted. Implications for teaching are discussed.