Syftet med denna systematiska litteraturstudie är att med hjälp av tidigare forskning undersöka vilken betydelse boksamtal har för elevers läsförståelse, vilken roll läraren har vid boksamtal, samt hur boksamtal utformas. Studiens resultat bygger på både facklitteratur och vetenskapliga artiklar som hämtats genom databassökningar och manuella sökningar. Resultatet visar att boksamtal är viktigt för att öka elevers läsförståelse, flera källor anger samtal som en väsentlig del för att underlätta elevers förståelse. Resultatet visar även att frågor som läraren använder sig av, är av betydelse vid utformningen av boksamtalen. Det är av vikt att läraren väljer ut relevanta och intresseväckande frågor som möjliggör utformningen. Slutligen visar resultatet att läraren spelar en viktig roll vid boksamtal, då i en roll som samtalsledare.

This essay is based on Judith A. Langer’s many years of literacy research and her concepts of ‘the literate mind’ and ‘envisionment building’ in the classroom. In addition to Langer’s theories, I consider several other strategies for reading, some of which have evolved from Langer’s ideas and are adapted to fit the teaching of English for Swedish upper secondary school. Furthermore, I discuss the benefits of teaching a foreign language with the help of literature in general and Young Adult (YA) literature in particular. Working with YA literature in the classroom can not only help students develop a greater empathy towards others, but is also well suited for teaching reading strategies to teenagers. In the analysis, I demonstrate a didactic approach with the help of extracts from Ruta Sepetys’ Between Shades of Gray (2011). My findings indicate that reading Young Adult literature can benefit teenagers’ personal growth as well as their language learning and general knowledge. Lastly, I assert that envisionment building can both lead to reevaluation of the readers themselves as well as to a greater understanding of different texts and the readers’ perception of the historical and contemporary world.

This essay argues that literature enhances the discussions of sensitive issues in a Swedish EFL classroom. Building on reader-response theory and Judith A. Langer's envisionment building, the themes affinity, suicide and discrimination found in Sue Monk Kidd's novel The Secret Life of Bees could be discussed. The reader-response theory gives the pupils an emotional outlet that the envisionment builds on. However, the identified themes also need to be critically analysed to create rewarding discussions, and to be able to fulfil Langer's envisionment. This will hopefully make the pupils think more deeply about these social issues and question their own possible prejudices.

This essay applies theories from gender studies and reader response to Elizabeth Acevedo’s The Poet X (2018). The essay discusses diversity in meaning making by investigating differences in creating envisionments. The aim is to unmask the differences in reading to improve and direct teaching practices in EFL classrooms. Moreover, an additional aim is to discuss whether envisionment can be seen as a gendered concept, or if the different readings are equally possible to reach Langer’s five stances. The Poet X centres on a female first-person narrator where the critique towards church, society and normative behaviour is prominent. The potential differences can be seen in understanding the characters in the novel, relating to previous experience and differing understandings of social structures. The pedagogical implementation aims at designing a learning situation where these differing understandings of text can be shared through metacognitive reflection and open-ended methods of pedagogy. The shared understanding of The Poet X in EFL settings can develop the students’ ability to find agency in interpretating texts.

The aim of this thesis was to study how five students linguistically express textual power in conversation and writing about reading, as well as to investigate their possibilities to linguistically express textual power. The study was performed within some of the literacy practices in the subjects of Swedish and Social Studies at the social sciences programme in upper secondary school. “Textual power” is here defined as both ability and possibility: to position oneself in relation to the text, to read/interpret critically and to show mobility in the actual literacy sphere. Two analytical tools were used: Langer’s theories about envisionment building and Martin & White’s appraisal framework for attitude and engagement. The linguistic expressions are contextualised in a model inspired by Linell. I base my discussion of the students’ mobility in the actual literacy sphere on the New Literacy theories of Barton and Street, while Anward gives the means to understand text-reproducing practices. The results indicate that the students used a limited range of positions in relation to texts, rarely expressed critical literacy and showed limited mobility in the actual literacy spheres. The students’ possibilities to linguistically express textual power were determined by the design of the teaching contexts. The students were given few possibilities to develop their ability to linguistically express textual power. To compensate for this, the students used a strategy of task solving. This caused a gap between ideally desired and actually produced text. The acceptance of the gap can be explained if the practice is considered text-reproducing. The literacy sphere where the students found themselves seems to consist of an ecological system based on a consensus-driven text-reproducing practice where critical and comparative reading and writing do not take root and thrive.

Vår utforskning av fiktionens världar kan fördjupa vår förståelse för oss själva, varandra och vår omvärld. Syftet för denna litteraturstudie är att nå en förståelse för hur narrativa datorspel kan ge upphov till dessa identitetsutvecklande insikter och hur litteraturundervisningen kan stödja elevernas vägar till att nå fram till dem. För att illustrera textgenrens lärandepotential används det narrativa datorspelet The Last of Us (2013) som ett studieobjekt. Med basis i kognitiv litteraturteori kring termerna immersion och narrativ experientialitet kan man utifrån denna litteraturstudie uttyda att de narrativa datorspelens upphov till identitetsutvecklande insikter bygger på ett slags fiktivt experientiellt lärande. Det inledande steget i detta lärande är spelarens inlevelse i spelets berättelse, den så kallade narrativa immersionen. Då datorspelsnarrativet etablerar ett känslomässigt engagemang gentemot spelarkaraktären möjliggörs ett delat erfarande inom fiktionsvärlden. Detta interaktiva och förkroppsligade tillstånd stimulerar spelaren att projicera sina egna kunskaper och erfarenheter för att förstå sina intryck av sin inlevelse i fiktionsvärlden. I en kognitiv simulation tillåts spelare reflektera hur de skulle reagera om de vore i samma situation. De kulturellt medierade erfarenheter spelare således tar till sig har potentialen att expandera deras befintliga förståelsebakgrund. De litteraturdidaktiska överväganden som nödvändiggörs för att stödja detta lärande bygger på att främja elevernas inträde i fiktionsvärlden och uppmuntra dem att knyta an sina individuella bakgrunder till sitt fiktiva erfarande. / Our explorations of the possible worlds of fiction help increase our understanding of each other, the world around us, and ourselves. The purpose of this study is to examine how narrative computer games may provide identity-defining insights and which literary teaching methods are beneficial to facilitate students’ access to them. To illustrate the learning potential of the genre this study examines the narrative computer game The Last of Us (2013). On the basis of cognitive literary theories relating to the concepts of immersion and narrative experientiality this study finds that the identity developmental potential of narrative computer games relies on a sense of fictional experiential learning. The inaugurating move in this learning is the player’s immersion in the story of the game, the so-called narrative immersion. As the players therein become emotionally involved in the player-characters’ lives they are exposed to a sense of shared experience with said characters. As this shared embodied experience within the storyworld is accompanied by the medium-specific interactive nature of computer games, players are also stimulated to project their own prior knowledge and experiences as they form assessments based on their subjective impressions of the storyworld. In a cognitive simulation, this interaction between the players’ prior experiential background and the experiences of the protagonists provides an avenue for players to reflect on how they would react if they were faced with a similar situation. The culturally mediated experiences the players thus gather may influence, redefine and expand the players’ current world of knowledge. In order to pave the students’ way to acquire these identity-defining insights, this study finds that pedagogical practices that favour a climate where students are encouraged to immerse themselves in the storyworld and attribute their prior experiential backgrounds to their fictive experiences therein are key factors that help unlock the full learning potential of narrative computer games.

The subject of this dissertation is Swedish upper secondary pupils’ reception of novels read as part of their literature instruction. The main purpose is to study and compare the reading of female pupils with that of male pupils and to analyze to what extent attention is paid to their private reading experiences in the literary teaching. What strategies do the students use to interpret and discuss fiction? And what is the relationship between their private reading habits and the way fiction is studied at school? Consequently, the subject field of this qualitative study concerns not only teenagers’ private reading habits, but also gender related issues, school adjusted reading routines and didactic matters. Reading at school differs in many ways from the pupils’ private reading habits, but there are also differences regarding the students’ attitudes towards reading as such. There proved to be certain diversities between the reading habits of boys and girls. The boys read in general less than the girls, and many boys were interested in reading adventurous and exciting stories. The girls were more into reading realistic novels, and to them it was important that they could identify with the characters. Many pupils responded personally to their reading. Instead of reflecting on the meaning of a text and comparing it to other texts or phenomena of the surrounding world, their reception confined itself to categories like “boring” or “exciting”. Merely a few students included a more profound literary analysis in their responses. An important aim of literature instruction must be to broaden the pupils’ literary repertoires and to make them improve their reading skills. This study shows that to achieve these improvements the students must feel involved, which means that literature instruction must be adapted to the literary cultures of both boys and girls.

The aim of the study is to investigate what pupils in grade 1 think about reading aloud, reading alone, the selection of books, and the significance of reading. A subsidiary aimwas to examine the relation between the pupils’ experiences of reading in the home andtheir ability to discuss a text they have read. A sidetrack in the study aimed to see whether the pupils’ experiences of reading in the home affected their outlook on readingin general. The empirical material is linked in the discussion to earlier research on topics such as learning to read and the significance of reading aloud. The discussion also establishes a parallel to theories of literary envisionment. The methods for thestudy were observation of a book conversation and group interviews with four pupils who had taken part in that conversation. The selection of informants was based on their actions during the book conversation, which led to the selection of two pupils who wereperceived as being more active and two who were less active. The study shows that the informants have a positive attitude both to reading aloud and to reading alone, and three of four prefer reading on their own. In the choice of books it is clear that the pictures are very significant for the pupils. All the pupils say that reading is important and three of the interviewed pupils link the significance of reading to jobs and school, while the fourth drew a parallel to the importance of reading in everyday life.