This paper presents a study of educational materials used in Swedish language education. The aim of the study is to understand in which way multimodal resources can be used in texts, to benefit in the process of meaning making among pupils in the nine-year compulsory school. The theoretical framework used as a basis for understanding and analysing these educational materials is the social semiotic multimodal perspective and the design theoretical multimodal perspective. The study is a multimodal text analysis but it also involves analyses of the syllabi connected to the subject of Swedish language education. The extended concept of text was introduced in the year of 2000 in the syllabus and today multimodal texts are supposed to be part of the Swedish language education. In course of this study the researcher found that multimodal resources can be used in different ways to benefit in the process of meaning making. The study shows that the use of resources is connected to the different aims among texts and to the affordances of meaning making resources.  The aim of texts differs among and in-between the educational materials connected to the different syllabi.  The researcher also found that the texts supposed to be included in Swedish language education has increased since the extended concept of text was introduced and according to the process of time. Pupils however, aren´t introduced to strategies for dealing with these new kinds of texts, in the same extent.

<p>Abstract</p><p>The name of this essay is: A content analyze of the expanded conception of text – in the School curriculum’s for the subjects Swedish, Arts, Philosophy, and Religion by Maria Tollstedt (spring semester 2008), supervisor is Heike Graf.</p><p>This essay is about the expanded conception of text. The theory for this work is the professor in literature Marshall McLuhans theories about Media being extensions of our bodies from the book Understanding Media (1964). The essay also discus and gives examples of definitions of what a text can be. This work examines and analyzes in what way the expanded conception of text implicitly and explicitly is being used in different Swedish governing school documents. More precisely the School curriculum’s concerning the four subjects: Swedish, Arts, Philosophy, and Religion.</p><p>The essay analyzes if the use of the expanded conception of text differs depending on which subjects the documents are addressing and if they are aimed and written for primary school or high school.</p><p>The conclusion of this work is that the expanded conception of text is not often explicitly used in the examined documents, and whether it is often implicitly used is a matter of interpretation.</p>

Abstract The name of this essay is: A content analyze of the expanded conception of text – in the School curriculum’s for the subjects Swedish, Arts, Philosophy, and Religion by Maria Tollstedt (spring semester 2008), supervisor is Heike Graf. This essay is about the expanded conception of text. The theory for this work is the professor in literature Marshall McLuhans theories about Media being extensions of our bodies from the book Understanding Media (1964). The essay also discus and gives examples of definitions of what a text can be. This work examines and analyzes in what way the expanded conception of text implicitly and explicitly is being used in different Swedish governing school documents. More precisely the School curriculum’s concerning the four subjects: Swedish, Arts, Philosophy, and Religion. The essay analyzes if the use of the expanded conception of text differs depending on which subjects the documents are addressing and if they are aimed and written for primary school or high school. The conclusion of this work is that the expanded conception of text is not often explicitly used in the examined documents, and whether it is often implicitly used is a matter of interpretation.

The object of this study is the reading log that has been issued by the Swedish National Agency for Education’s teachers’ in-service training, The Literacy Boost or Läslyftet. The in-service training programme has been broken down into different modules, and the focus of this study is the reading log that has been addressed by a section of one of the modules. Essentially, this study aims to investigate six different teachers’ perceptions and experiences of the reading log. The method used for this investigation is semi-structured interviews. Consequently, the following research questions were outlined: 1.How do the teachers view the reading log and how have their views been altered by the in-service training?2.Which types of text are the teachers prone to use the reading log for?The results of the semi-structured interviews have shown that the different teachers’ perceptions of the purpose of the reading log were unanimous and aligned with theories addressed in the material. However, the necessity of writing for reflection was questioned by one. Further, all the teachers were acquainted with the reading log prior to the in-service training, and even though only a few new theories were acquired, many teachers benefited from new insights and various ways of using the reading log. Many had also experienced the repetition as positive. Lastly, the interviews also uncovered that the language teachers were more prone to using the reading log for literature studies, whereas teachers who also taught civics were prone to using the reading log for different types of texts.Key words: reading log, reflection, social development theory, reader-response criticism, discussion, the extended concept of text, formative assessment, efferent and aesthetic reading In Swedish with an abstract in English

ABSTRACT This licentiate thesis is a study of the curriculum of the school subject Swedish from a socio-cultural perspective. The aim of the study is to obtain insights into how pupils in the seventh grade of the Swedish secondary school system read films, and further to investigate how the education in Swedish can manage and make the most of various approaches to film. The survey was conducted in a class which I teach myself, and the empirical data consists primarily of oral and written statements by the pupils, concerning the films they have seen. Furthermore the social context around the reception of the films has been mapped. As part of the empirical data there is also a record of a discussion in the classroom concerning filmmaking. With the reception model of Kathleen McCormick as a point of departure, the filmic repertoires of the pupils are analyzed, described and interpreted as they stand out within the framework of the study. The general repertoires of the pupils are also dealt with to some extent. The representations and non-representations of the readings are further discussed in a social semiotic perspective. The research shows that the pupils bring rich experiences of fiction from television as well as film to school. The research also indicates that there is a potential for specific learning processes in the reading of film, since the reception of film entails a possibility to widen the general and filmic repertoires as well as to be conscious of them. The most important potential for learning is in the meeting with films that create a tension between the general repertoires of the reader and the film itself, since the film in those cases stands for something hitherto unknown for the reader. The pupils in my survey do not, however, primarily watch film in order to obtain new experiences, or to learn something; they watch film as a means to feel and share experiences with others in order to strengthen their sense of belonging to a group. One exception appears to be films that the pupils interpret as based on reality, since there is a tendency among the pupils to be more openminded for clashes between their own repertoires and the repertoires in films when it comes to fiction anchored in reality. The true challenge of the teaching is to attract the pupils to develop conscious relationships to films that imply a tension between repertoires. The reasons for these tensions have furthermore to be investigated. When it comes to films based on reality, the study makes it clear that the population of pupils represents a diverse set of attitudes towards the films; some pupils read the films as pure facts, while others read them in a more reflective way, comparing the mediated images of reality in the actual films with other types of experiences. The teaching of Swedish with the intention to take care of the reception of film among school children must be conducted in an awareness of the fact that not all pupils are representing their readings in a way that makes it possible to create meeting places around them within the educational framework. In my view, the education in Swedish for the secondary school must in a more active way open up for the possibility for the pupils to acquire strategies for a conscious handling of their film readings, as well as access to a language by which they can make their representations. The fact that not all pupils are aware of how film can mediate constructions of reality makes it important to take care of the children’s readings in such a way that makes them aware of the semiotic resources of the cinematic medium. This is one reason why one should allow them make their own films. It is also important to use a diversity of semiotic resources when pupils are representing their readings in order to underline the plurality of interpretations and filmic repertoires. Finally, I discuss the results of my research in relation to the new curriculum of Swedish education as it is presented in the syllabus “Lgr 11” which will take effect as from the autumn semester of 2011. In my analysis I find that the space for work of the kind I have conducted in the classroom will be diminished due to the new curriculum. There are, however, still possibilities and a learning potential for a teaching in Swedish that in an active way will take care of film experiences, as well as other kinds of textual experiences.