Barns tidiga skolskrivande: Emergent disciplinary literacy, elevtextens dialogism och skrivundervisning som diskurspraktiker

Abstract in English

While writing instructional practices concerning older students have been researched and practiced in numerous ways throughout the 20th century, the primary school years (ages 5-7) have not been as focused. Recent decades have, however, seen a growing interest in L1 and writing instruction in primary school years, a movement of which this thesis is part. The purpose of the thesis in Didaktik is to add knowledge on what characterizes early school writing and how it may be understood as discourse practices. The theoretical framework of the thesis builds on a Hallidayan social semiotic notion of language (Halliday & Matthiessen, 2014), a Bakhtinian understanding of texts as dialogic (Bakhtin, 1981), and a didactically based receptionist perspective on the meeting between text/prompt and student (Liberg, 2001). Further theoretical concepts drawn on are the notion of disciplinary literacy (Shanahan & Shanahan, 2012) and Fairclough’s (2003) Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA). The methodological framework consists of analytical tools inspired by Systemic Functional Grammar, Bakhtin’s dialogism and CDA. The thesis includes four papers building on texts written by students in primary school years, video-observations of writing instructional practices, and teacher interviews. The results show that students in primary school years may construe texts using a significant variety of linguistic resources, which can be related to more advanced ways of writing, showing signs of what is discussed as emergent disciplinary literacies. The thesis further shows examples of heteroglossia through the multifaceted texts construed by students concerning specific writing tasks, and textual dialogism through both intertextuality and interdiscursivity. It is also demonstrated how a CDA perspective on writing instruction can enable a deeper understanding of how power operates in and behind discourse in early school years. From these results I argue that primary school writing can be a hotbed for the cultivation of disciplinary literacies, and for awareness of the significance of the dialogic relationship between texts and children’s experiences in early school writing instruction. Finally, I argue that the L1 subject can be a subject for democracy in its own right, not least by showing how social purposes of writing can be fulfilled in different ways and by highlighting (and challenging) dominant linguistic practices, such as disciplinary literacy practices. I further argue that L1 as a subject of democracy entails understanding how power permeates the primary school writing classroom, shaping (constraints of) what is possible to say, do and be.