Umeå University's logo

Gemensamt för forskning inom fältet Academic Literacies är att det finns en strävan att lämna ett så kallat bristperspektiv (se t.ex. Malmström 2017) och istället rikta fokus mot lärandekontexten. I de utbildningsstrategiska satsningarna Skrivlyftet vid Mittuniversitet och Skrivum vid Umeå universitet genomförs skrivdidaktiska verkstäder där lektorer med skrivdidaktisk kompetens (fortsättningsvis skrivdidaktiker) arbetar tillsammans med lärarlag från flera olika utbildningsprogram och därmed olika discipliner. Lärarlagen inventerar och utforskar de befintliga undervisningspraktikerna och formulerar en programspecifik handlingsplan för att utveckla en stärkt ämnesintegrerad skrivdidaktik inom sin utbildning. Vi undersöker hur lärarlag reflekterar kring akademisk litteracitet och hur de kan implementera principerna för Academic Literacies i sin pedagogiska praktik. Studiens material består dels av lärarnas tanketexter, dels av introspektiva intervjuer (Haglund 2003). Materialet analyseras initialt genom tematisk innehållsanalys (Braun & Clarke 2006). Därefter tillämpas det sociokulturella ramverket Academic Literacies (Lea & Street 1998) och analysen baseras på Lea och Streets modell som delar in aktiviteter och föreställningar kopplade till skrivande i högre utbildning i tre överlappande diskurser: färdighetsdiskurs, socialiseringsdiskurs samt akademiska litteracitesdiskurs (AL-diskurs). Detta ramverk används i kombination med begreppet agency (Ahearn 2001), vilket kan bidra till att synliggöra möjlighet att delta, utvecklas och bidra till förändring. Genom kombinationen undersöker vi dels vilka diskurser som lärarna ger uttryck för, dels deras agency. Det analytiska arbetet underbyggs av forskningsfrågan: Vilka utmaningar och begränsningar uppstår i utövandet av agency i professionella sammanhang, när undervisningspraktiken utvecklas mot en ämnesintegrerad skrivdidaktik? Formulärets överkant De preliminära resultaten visar på en variation när det gäller lärarnas diskursiva förhållningssätt till akademisk literacitet och det finns exempel på hur de breddat sina perspektiv. Flera av lärarna positionerar sig som handlingskraftiga agenter samtidigt som det framgår att tidsbegränsning, resurser, styrdokument och även upplevelsen av att inte ha tillräcklig kompetens, påverkar lärarnas handlingsutrymme. Med presentationen vill vi bidra till ökade insikter om hur lärarlag kan fördjupa och omsätta sin förståelse av Academic literacies i praktiken. Resultaten bidrar med underlag för vidare forskning och diskussion om universitetslärares möjligheter att göra skillnad för studenters erövrande av akademisk litteracitet. Här framhävs vikten av att etablera forum för dialog och samarbete mellan skrivdidaktiker och universitetslärare. Samverkan kan bidra till att synliggöra ofta outtalade kunskaper om läs- och skrivpraktiker samtidigt som den kan främja en kritisk förståelse av undervisningen i ämnenas specifika krav på akademisk litteracitet. Vidare betonas behovet av att universitetsledningen inkorporerar långsiktiga strategier för att upprätthålla och utveckla kunskaper om ämnesintegrerad skrivdidaktik.

I deltagande forskning utvecklas ömsesidig respekt och relationer mellan forskare och andra deltagare där alla bidrar med sin expertis som är nödvändiga i forskningsprojektet (Tuhiwai Smith, 2021). I denna följeforskningsstudie analyseras och jämförs intervjumaterial i två olika språkdidaktiska deltagande forskningsprojekt[1]. Syftet med följeforskningen är att ge kunskap och förståelse för de lärprocesser som den här typen av deltagande samverkansprojekt genomgår. Intervjuerna med 6 lärare och 7 forskare analyseras utifrån teorier om praktikgemenskap (Lave & Wenger, 1991). Preliminära resultat diskuteras utifrån fyra teman som träder fram: tillsammansperspektivet, tilltroperspektiv, tidsperspektivet och teoriperspektivet.

Referenser

Lave, J., & Wenger, E. (1991). Situated learning: Legitimate peripheral participation. Cambridge:

Cambridge University Press.

Tuhiwai Smith, L. (2021). Decolonizing methologies: Research and indigenous people. 3 uppl. London: Zed Books.

 [1] Skrivande som näring för demokratin, 2019–2021

Att knäcka läskoden: undervisning i alfabetisk avkodning och morfologisk kunskap för grundskoleelever med lässvårigheter, 2022-07-01 – 2026-06-30

Academic literacy is essential for students’ success in higher education. Universities offer various forms of support directed at individual students’ development of such competence, and increasingly also initiatives tailored for specific educational areas (Hakim & Wingate, 2024), e.g. teacher education. This presentation therefore targets an academic literacies project where teams of subject lecturers from teacher education were invited to a series of workshops. The workshops included exploring, developing and critically reflecting on their own literacy practices under the guidance of literacy development practitioners (LPP). In alignment with the ideological stance found in the field of Academic Literacies (Lea & Street, 2006), this type of approach assigns responsibility for scaffolding students’ academic literacies on study programs rather than on individual teachers or even students.   This presentation demonstrates how subject lecturers in teacher education describe their efforts to enhance academic literacy instruction. The study was guided by the research question: what opportunities and obstacles arise when teaching practices evolve towards subject integrated approaches to writing instruction in teacher education? We analyzed how subject lecturers, who had participated in the workshops, perceive and integrate academic literacies principles into their educational practices, using data from workshop output such as writing plans, questionnaires and follow-up interviews with subject lecturers. Data was initially analyzed using thematic content analysis (Braun & Clarke, 2006) followed by an examination through the sociocultural framework of Academic Literacies (Lea & Street, 2006). Results show a range of perspectives among subject lecturers on academic literacies including instances of broadened viewpoints. The results emphasize that collaborating with LPP can facilitate subject lecturers integrating academic literacies into the curriculum by making their tacit knowledge explicit and accessible (Jacobs, 2005; Wingate, 2019; Hakim & Wingate, 2024). While there are opportunities to enhance literacy instruction through strategies and theories, subject lecturers’ ability to implement these improvements is affected by time constraints, resources, policy documents and perceived gaps in competence.  This study is relevant to Nordic educational research as it contributes insights into how subject lecturers develop their understanding of Academic Literacy and learn to implement such an approach in ways that make a difference to students. Although there are several published examples of embedded literacy instruction, there is still limited evidence of collaborations where university management has provided funding and teams of subject lectures have been given authority to implement these initiatives.  

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.

This study aims to explore the literacy practices and attitudes of student teachers in their first semester of teacher education. The research seeks to understand how student teachers approach writing or broader literacy tasks, and how their attitudes toward these practices might differ across educational contexts. A questionnaire-based method was employed, using the WASP (Writing Attitude Survey for Teachers and Pupils) alongside additional items designed to capture attitudes toward reading and writing. The sample includes participants from multiple universities, with potential cross-country collaboration, including institutions in Sweden, Belgium, and Türkiye, ensuring a diverse representation of student teacher profiles. Factor analysis will be conducted to identify underlying patterns and profiles of literacy attitudes and practices, aiming to create a nuanced understanding of student teachers’ approaches. By keeping the methodological scope focused, this study will initially concentrate on writing, with the option to expand into broader literacy practices (including reading) in subsequent stages of the research. It is anticipated that the factor analysis will reveal distinct profiles of student teachers based on their literacy attitudes and practices in each country. These profiles may indicate varying levels of confidence, engagement, and self-efficacy in writing, with some student teachers displaying more positive attitudes toward literacy practices than others. This study offers valuable insights that can inform teacher education programs in diverse contexts in Europe. By investigating the literacy attitudes and practices of student teachers, the findings provide a framework that could be adapted and applied to similar programs in universities worldwide, contributing to the broader discussion of literacy education in diverse educational contexts. This study is a first step toward building a comparative framework for understanding the literacy development of student teachers in various educational systems. 

Läroplaner är inte bara pedagogiska ramar, utan även sociokulturella och politiska konstruktioner som speglar sina utvecklings- och tillämpningskontexter (jfr Parr m.fl., i tryck). I en värld som förändras snabbt är policystudier avgörande för att förstå relationen mellan utbildning och dess politiska kontext. Vi vet dessutom att mätbarhetsfokus och washback-effekter av nationella prov spelar en avgörande roll för skrivundervisning (jfr Sturk, 2022), vilket gör det angeläget att utforska vilka föreställningar om skrivande som framträder i dessa prov.Denna studie undersöker underliggande föreställningar om skrivande och skrivundervisningi läroplaner och nationella prov för nio skolämnen från grundskola till gymnasium för att förstå vilken typ av skrivande som elever i det svenska utbildningssystemet förväntas möta. Våra forskningsfrågor är: • Vilka skrivdiskurser återfinns i läroplaner och nationella prov från grundskola till gymnasium? • Hur beskrivs dessa diskurser? • Hur kan progression av skrivande, såsom den framgår i policydokumenten och nationella proven, beskrivas?Totalt består data för den här presentationen av 18 kursplaner i nio ämnen och nationella prov från tre av dessa ämnen. Som analytiskt verktyg används Ivaničs (2004, 2017) ramverk för skrivdiskurser: färdighet, kreativitet, tänka och lära, process, genre, social praktisk och sociopolitisk. I analysen undersöks också exempel där språkhandlingar inte specificeras som muntliga eller skriftliga. Dessutom används begreppet diskursdensitet (Peterson et al., 2018, s. 504) för att analysera i vilken omfattning olika skrivdiskurser skrivs fram i policy och nationella prov.Preliminära resultat visar ett fokus på skrivande som en uppsättning färdigheter och genrer, med mindre betoning på andra aspekter av skrivande. Progressionen kännetecknas i huvudsak av en genrediskurs där kursplanernas innehåll rör sig från beskrivande och berättande texter i riktning mot ett vetenskapligt skrivande. 

This study explores underlying beliefs and values about writing and learning to write that are present in curricula. Primary and upper secondary school curricula are analyzed to understand what writing pupils in the Swedish educational system are taught. Ivanič’s (2004, 2017) framework for discourses of writing is employed as an analytical tool, enabling a comprehensive understanding of writing. Furthermore, the concept of discourse density (Peterson et al., 2018, p. 504) is used as a tool to analyze to what extent different kinds of writing are elaborated on. Preliminary results reveal writing as a set of skills and genre and less focus on other discourses. The results will be discussed in relation to progression in the curricula.  

Writing researchers have frequently used Ivanic’s discourses of writing (DoW) (2004; 2017) framework in studies of writing curricula and instruction. To understand how the framework might be modified for writing research moving forward, we present a systematic review of literature comparing findings from DoW studies situated in differing geopolitical and educational contexts.

Research questions: Which DoWs are most and least represented in research findings situated across varying geographic contexts and education levels?Which DoWs are not included in Ivanic’s framework but are identified in the studies’ findings?

Theoretical framework: The DoW framework is based in an understanding that textwriting is embedded within three domains: cognitions, events, and social contexts (Ivanic, 2004). Based on this understanding, the DoW encompass seven categories that represent ways of thinking about the purposes of writing and how it is represented: skills, creativity, thinking and learning, process, genre, social practices, sociopolitical.

Methods: We compiled a corpus of 56 research publications by using “discourse[s] of writing” to search our university library databases and Google Scholar. We collected studies that:

• Explicitly used Ivanic’s framework as analytic tool to investigate writing curricula and/or instruction (e.g., via deductive and/or abductive coding)

• Were published in English or Scandinavian

We first sorted articles according to Akker’s (2003) five curriculum categories: written, prescribed, planned, enacted, experienced. Next, to analyse which discourses were most prominent in the findings, as well is which (if any) additional discourses were identified, we coded each study’s findings for DoW categories.

Findings: The results show that text-focused discourses are most prominent and sociopolitical discourses are least prominent. Few studies have identified DoWs other than those included in Ivanic’s framework. The framework is useful as analytic tool across the five curriculum categories.

Conventional teacher education is often seen as predominantly theoretical, raising a challenge in effectively blending theoretical knowledge with practical application (Darling-Hammond, 2014). To equip student teachers with the skills to teach writing effectively, teacher education programs must help them grasp the essence of writing as a phenomenon and understand the practical realities of teaching writing (Bomer et al., 2019; Winzell, 2018).

This presentation outlines an ongoing project titled “Skrivdidaktik i lärarutbildning och skola i Finland och Sverige” (2022–2024), a collaborative research endeavor between the Teacher Education departments at Åbo Akademi University in Finland and Umeå University in Sweden. Within this project, we conduct lectures and interactive reflective seminars on writing didactic theory (Ivanic, 2004, 2017), utilizing a reflective observation model (Sturk, 2022). This model involves linking various supportive elements in the course structure with teacher candidates' observations of writing instruction in school settings. We employ a framework that encompasses various discourses of writing and learning to write. Ivanič (2004) presents a holistic view of writing across layers: text, cognition, events, and social contexts, identifying seven key discourses: skills, creativity, thinking and learning, process, genre, social practices, and sociopolitical factors. A total of 135 student teachers participated in the project, with data collection comprising 234 questionnaires, 237 observed lessons spanning school years 1–6, 47 student teachers’ exams, 2 focus group interviews, and 3 researchers’ notes.

The overarching goal of the project is to investigate how student teachers integrate theoretical concepts of writing and teaching writing into practical contexts, examining the process of recontextualizing a framework for writing and teaching writing within the context of teacher education. To achieve this, three primary research questions are posed:

·       How do student teachers translate theory into practice?

·       How do student teachers apply writing theory in practical settings?

·       What characterizes the interaction between researchers and student teachers during seminars on teaching writing theory and practice?

Various methods have been employed to analyze the data, including deductive discourse analysis for identifying writing discourses, thematic content analysis to explore student teachers' reflections (Braun & Clarke, 2006), and a post-humanistic approach to investigate interactions during seminar discussions between students and researchers.

Preliminary findings suggest both opportunities and challenges in translating theoretical insights on writing into practical teaching strategies, particularly concerning the dimensions of writing as text, cognition, and social practice. The seminars appear instrumental in fostering a deeper understanding of the intricacies involved in teaching writing.

 Bomer, R., Land, C. L., Rubin, J. C., & Van Dike, L. M. (2019). Constructs of Teaching Writing in Research About Literacy Teacher Education. Journal of Literacy Research, 51(2), 196–213. https://doi.org/10.1177/1086296X19833783

Braun, V., & Clarke, V. (2006). Using thematic analysis in psychology. Qualitative Research in Psychology, 3(2), 77–101. 

Darling-Hammond, L. (2014). Strengthening Clinical Preparation: The Holy Grail of Teacher Education. Peabody journal of education, 89(4), 547-561. 

Ivanic, R. (2004). Discourses of writing and learning to write. Language and Education, 18(3), 220-245.

Ivanic, R. (2017). Round table on discourses of writing, and writer identity. Paper presented at the LITUM symposium, 4-5 June, Umea, Sweden.

Kress, G. (2010). Multimodality: A social semiotic approach to contemporary communication. Routledge.

Sturk, E. (2022). Writing across the curriculum in compulsory school in Sweden [Doktorsavhandling, Umeå universitet]. 

Winzell, H. (2018). Lära för skrivundervisning : en studie om skrivdidaktisk kunskap i ämneslärarutbildningen och läraryrket. Diss. Linköping.