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In this paper, we explore how participation and participatory writing can be enhanced through Appraisal theory and reader awareness. Democratic participation by the means of writing is a crucial and powerful tool. Through an intensive writing intervention, we explore the effects of scaffolding on two key aspects of participatory writing, expressing interpersonal meaning (one’s own thoughts) and awareness of readers (by argumentation and interaction in rhetorical structures) and how this can enhance participatory writing. We focus on middle-school pupils and thusly address a critical developmental stage where foundational writing skills can be significantly enhanced. Results show that the intervention based on scaffolding techniques had an impact on some aspects of the pupils’ writing. For example, some pupils responded more to counter arguments, thereby including more discussion in their texts. Also, even though the intervention did not include the rhetorical structure of a letter, pupils did include more leave-taking after the intervention. Further, the intervention had an impact on pupils’ attitude and graduation; they used more of both after the writing intervention than before.

In democratic societies, exchange of written opinion is fundamental, but since the 1990s, public debate has gradually moved away from print media platforms to digital media platforms. In order to understand how a shift from print to digital media in opinion-oriented writing may have consequences for interaction and participation, it is relevant to investigate interpersonal aspects of opinion-oriented texts situated in digital and print media. The aim of the study is to explore and compare writers’ attitudes and the construction of the writer-reader-relationship in digital media (represented by Twitter) and (traditionally) print media (represented by letters to the editor, LEs). Bakhtinian dialogism and appraisal theory form the theoretical backdrop of the study. Results show that in the LEs, writers tend to take a negative general value position, but in the tweets, the writers’ attitude is more often either positive or negative, making Twitter a more diverse platform. Furthermore, attitudinal meaning is more transparent in the LEs, indicating that tweets are more often specialized, and readers who are not familiar with the context and interactional style of specific writers may be excluded from the communication. Another result is that a shift from print to digital media platforms seems to turn the focus of discussion more towards attitudes and perspectives in general, and less towards writers’ own attitudes. Therefore, digital media opinion exchange can be understood as a meta-discussion of attitudes, while print media rather transmit writers’ personal attitudes.

I demokratiska samhällen har åsiktsutbyte i skriftlig debatt en grundläggande funktion, men sedan 1990-talet har den offentliga debatten gradvis rört sig från tryckta medieplattformar till digitala medieplattformar. För att förstå hur detta skifte i opinionsorienterat skrivande kan få konsekvenser för interaktion och delaktighet, är det relevant att undersöka interpersonella aspekter av opinionsorienterade texter i digitala och tryckta medier. Syftet med studien är att utforska och jämföra författares attityder och konstruktion av relationen mellan skribent och läsare i digitala medier (representerade av Twitter) och (traditionellt) tryckta medier (representerade av dagstidningars insändarbrev). Dialogism i Bakhtins tradition och appraisal-teori utgör den teoretiska bakgrunden för studien. Resultaten visar att skribenter tenderar att inta en allmänt negativ attityd i insändarbrev, men i tweets är skribenters attityd mer heterogen, vilket gör Twitter till en mer skiftande och diversifierad mediaplattform. Dessutom uttrycks attityder i insändarbrev nästan uteslutande explicit, medan attityder i tweets oftare uttrycks implicit eller indirekt, vilket gör att läsare som inte är bekanta med sammanhanget och interaktionsstilen hos specifika skribenter riskerar bli utestängda från kommunikationssituationen. Ett annat resultat är att en övergång från tryckta till digitala mediaplattformar tycks flytta diskussionsfokus bort från skribenters egna attityder, till förmån för andras attityder och allmänna perspektiv. Därför kan digitala mediers åsiktsutbyte förstås som en metadiskussion av attityder, medan tryckta medier snarare förmedlar författares personliga attityder.

This study engages with the discursive construction of knowledge in school documents concerning pupils in need of special pedagogical support. In these texts, information from various voices is represented and recontextualized, meaning that images of pupils are negotiated and outlined, and ultimately knowledge about pupils and their learning is constructed discursively. The aim of the study is to investigate practices of knowledge construction in these texts. The data consist of 27 documents written by teachers who teach in lower secondary school (7th–9th grades). Drawing on linguistic discourse analysis, lexico-grammatical features are analyzed from both a qualitative and a quantitative perspective. The study shows how information originating from various voices is managed and framed by linguistic means in qualitatively different ways, and how the framing of information contributes to construction of several kinds of knowledge. In the analysis, five forms of framing are identified, along with six different types of voices. By quantifying the forms of framing as related to various voices, the study maps out the legitimization and delegitimization of various voices via the construction of different kinds of knowledge. Even though information from several voices is represented in the texts, it is primarily information from either the writer him/herself or written sources, such as previous documentation about pupils, that is legitimized by the writer.

För lärare är texter och skriftpraktiker centrala inslag i den dagliga yrkesutövningen. Syftet med den här studien är att bättre förstå läraryrket och dess förutsättningar med fokus på textanvändning, och studien söker svar på hur några lärare i skolans senare år (7–9 och gymnasiet) beskriver, uppfattar och förhåller sig till läsande och skrivande inom yrket samt hur de beskriver skriftpraktiksanknutna utmaningar och resurser. Materialet för studien består av ljudinspelade fokusgruppsamtal. Studien finner att lärarnas samtal präglas av allmängiltiga resonemang om texter och textanvändning genom att lärarna fokuserar på aspekter som är relevanta för i princip alla skrivsituationer, till exempel tydlighet och textlängd. Vidare framträder bilden av att 7–9-lärarna har ett mer kollektivt orienterat förhållningssätt gentemot yrkets skriftpraktiker än vad gymnasielärarna har. Ifråga om skriftpraktiksanknutna utmaningar ser lärarna framför allt utmaningar i skrivandet av texter som de menar har indirekt undervisningsanknytning, och särskilt beskriver de utmaningar med att formulera sig på sätt så att mottagare inte blir upprörda. Av samtalen framgår också att de resurser som lärarna ser sig ha för att utveckla kompetens att hantera skriftpraktiksanknutna utmaningar utgörs av informella strukturer, vilket är anmärkningsvärt med tanke på att de aktuella skriftpraktikernaär centrala i deras yrkesutövning.

For teachers, literacy practices are central to their everyday work. The aim of this study is to better understand the teaching profession and it’s conditions with a focus on text usage. The study seeks to answer how some teachers in the school’s later years (7–9 and upper secondary school) describe, perceive and relate to professional literacy practices and how they describe literacy practices-related challenges and resources. Data consists of audio-recorded focus group discussions. Findings are that teacher’s discussions are characterized by generic perspectives on literacy practices, for example by focusing on clarity and text length. Furthermore, the teachers in years 7–9 seem to have a more collectively oriented approach to literacy practices than upper secondary teachers. In terms of challenges related to literacy practices, they focus on writing with an indirect connection to teaching, and they describe difficulties about formulating written texts in such a way that no reader gets upset. The conversations also show that the resources that the teachers perceive as available to them in developing literacy skills and for dealing with challenges related to literacy practices consist of informal support structures, which is interesting given that the relevant literacy practices  are central to their work.