2026-04-01
Katherina Dodou, Lisbeth Brevik, Marte Blikstad-Balas
Creative approaches to literary texts may develop students’ literary competences, but little is known about how prevalent such approaches are and how they are implemented. This study explored naturally occurring, that is non-interventionist, literature instruction in the subjects L1 Norwegian and L2 English, based on the quantitative and qualitative analysis of 301 video-recorded lower secondary lessons from 73 classrooms in Norway in 2015–24. By juxtaposing L1 and L2, the study recognises the importance of literature instruction across school subjects, and it advances the understanding of how literary texts are taught in L1 relating to L2. The findings indicate that creative response activities were a recurring feature in both subjects across the studied decade, although they occurred more frequently in L2 lessons. In both subjects, teachers provided opportunities for students to exercise various literary competences when responding creatively to literary texts. However, they offered little guidance on how students could undertake these activities and rarely combined them with analytical reflection that could support students’ developing literary competences. The study discusses implications for teaching and research.
2026-03-11
Capucine Saulpic, Emmanuelle Canut, Caroline Masson, Stefano Rezzonico
Numerous studies have documented the features of child-directed speech, such as recasts and prompts, that contribute to the development of phonology, morphology, lexicon, and syntax in children before three. Upon entering the school system, significant disparities in language skills become apparent. This exploratory study aims to provide a deeper understanding of the processes that foster the development of complex syntactic skills in French-speaking children aged three to five with language vulnerabilities in an after-school intervention programme. Specifically, this research investigates which features of child-directed speech influence the syntactic structure of children's utterances in terms of complexity and completeness. A series of dyadic interactions between an adult and a child engaged in a joint narration within an intervention programme were analysed using sequential analysis. The findings indicate that the functional strategies (assertions and prompts) employed by adults as the discursive strategies (recasts and offers) significantly influence the syntactic structure of children’s utterances. Assertions facilitate the production of complete and more complex utterances, whereas prompts are linked to the use of incomplete and simpler utterances. Additionally, recasts promote the use of complex and complete utterances, in contrast to offers. Furthermore, children appear to become increasingly aware of adults’ expectations over time.
2026-02-07
Morten Tannert
This study examines how young writers use stance and engagement—key constructs in shaping disciplinary voice—in L1 argumentative writing. A corpus of 118 student texts from grades 5 (age 10-11) and 8 (age 13-14) was analyzed using a framework that combined theory- and data-driven categories. Descriptive and comparative analyses revealed that grade 5 students used significantly more hedges, counters, invoked attitude, reformulation markers, and self-mentions, while grade 8 students employed more direct quotations and questions, suggesting a shift toward less explicit self-positioning and more content-focused argumentation in grade 8. A qualitative look at two texts illustrates how stance and engagement are realized in context, showing nuances—such as hedging combined with self-mentions in grade 5, and content-focused counters and rhetorical questions in grade 8—that are not fully captured by the quantitative measures. This highlights how writing task, genre, and instructional context shape the expression of disciplinary voice alongside general grade-level tendencies. The results are discussed in the context of general writing development theories as well as theories of voice and disciplinary writing.