The aim of this study is to investigate how five boys in grade 3 of compulsory school structure and use language when they write narrative texts retelling and assessing personally experienced events. This is studied by interpreting how the boys use genre steps that are typical of the structure of personal narrative texts and by detecting and naming different linguistic features in the texts. The material in the study consists of five boys’personal reports and the method, which is based on the theories of genre pedagogy (see Johansson & Sandell Ring 2012:28ff, 223f), comes from systemic functional linguistics. A central finding of the study is that the boys structure their texts in varying combinations of genre steps which commonly occur in texts of a narrative kind. Another central finding is that the language in the boys’ texts consists of many verbs and verb groups which explain that someone is acting or doing something, different discourse connectives to indicate time, along with expressions for emotions and descriptions of experiences or objects.

The present study has two purposes. One aim is to investigate to what extent 20 pupils in grade 3 use two different forms of presentation in their narrative texts and how these choices of forms of presentation create certain patterns in the pupils’ texts. Another aim is to study to what extent the pupils use various features of spoken language in their narrative texts and whether these features correlate with the forms of presentation. The material in the study consists of 20 narrative texts from the national test in Swedish in 2011. The analytical models are based, among other things, on the theory of linguistic variation (see Nordberg 2013). A central finding of the study is that the pupils mainly choose to write their narrative texts from their own standpoint and that the choice of forms of presentation creates two different patterns in the pupils’ texts. One pattern that is found in several pupils’ texts builds on an interplay between the pupils’ own voice and the voice of other characters. Another central finding is that the pupils use many colloquial forms of pronouns, and that the features of spoken language are more common in various dialogue contexts than when the pupils tell the story in their own voice.

Synen på vad som utgör akademisk skrivkompetens varierar över tid och i olika kulturer. Förmågan att strukturera texter på ett logiskt och begripligt sätt kan dock ses som en universell vetenskaplig kompetens oavsett skrivmiljö, liksom förmågan att värdera kunskap och ta ställning i relation till olika källor. Denna studies syfte är att undersöka och kategorisera förekomsten av markörer för textuell organisation och ställnings­tagande i en grupp gymnasieelevers utredande texter samt att undersöka sambandet mellan bruket av dessa markörer och texternas betyg. Studiens korpus består av 18 utredande elevtexter, jämnt fördelade mellan betygen A, C och E. Texterna har analyserats genom kvalitativ närläsning med en analysmodell avsedd att fånga uttryck för textuell organisation och ställningstagande. Resultatet visar att elevernas bruk av organisations- och ställningstagandemarkörer varierar, men att det finns mönster i användandet som har kopplingar till texternas betyg. A-texterna utmärker sig genom en större variation av organisations- och ställningstagandeuttryck än texterna med lägre betyg. Markörer för textuell organisation och ställningstagande används i A- och C-texterna främst för att belysa och jämföra olika perspektiv, medan E-skribenterna i högre grad använder samma markörer för att förklara och ge uttryck för personliga åsikter om ämnet. I materialet som helhet finns få exempel på källkritiska värderingar. En slutsats av resultatet är att eleverna befinner sig olika långt ifrån de normer som kännetecknar akademiskt skrivande. Framförallt E-texterna innehåller drag som inte är funktionella i vetenskapliga sammanhang. Detta väcker frågor om hur undervisningen om akademiskt skrivande bör utformas för att möta elevernas utvecklingsbehov – på såväl språklig som innehållsmässig nivå. / The idea of what constitutes academic writing competence varies through time and in different cultures. However, the ability to structure texts in a logical and comprehensible way can be seen as a universal scholarly competence regardless of writing context, like the ability to appraise knowledge and take a stance concerning different sources. The aim of this study is to investigate and categorize the occurrence of textual organizational markers and stance markers in explanatory texts written by a group of high school students, and to investigate the relation between the use of these markers and the grading of the texts. The corpus of the study consists of 18 explanatory student texts, equally divided between grades A, C and E. The texts have been analyzed through qualitative close reading using an analytical model designed to capture organizational markers and stance markers. The result shows that the students’ usage of these markers varies, but that patterns of usage connected to the grades of the texts can be identified. The A-texts excel through a larger variation of organizational markers and stance markers than the texts given lower grades. In the A- and C-texts organizational markers and stance markers are used primarily to illustrate and compare different perspectives, while in the E-texts the students use the same markers to explain and express personal opinions on the subject. The material as a whole contains very few examples of critical evaluation of sources. A conclusion of the result is that the students are at different distances from the norms that distinguish academic writing. Especially the E-texts contain many features that are not functional in academic contexts. This raises questions about how the teaching of academic writing should be designed to suit the students’ needs for writing development – on the level of language as well as content.