School writing in a changing media ecology

Abstract

This article draws on a research project called “Genres in Transition” which took place between 2003 and 2007 and involved about 1,500 pupils in two Swedish upper secondary schools (ages 16-18). The project aimed to investigate pupils’ writing practices in Swedish (the mother tongue). It drew on theory and research in the teaching of literature, pedagogy of writing and media studies as have been developed in Scandinavia under the influence of international research on reader response criticism, cultural studies, media studies, and genre theory. School texts in different formats and settings the pupils produced were collected and analysed. Interviews with both the pupils and teachers were also carried out. This article presents and discusses one of the 113 essays collected for the project. That essay was written by a boy in a vocational programme and, like the other collected essays, was written by hand on paper with a pencil. Drawing on this example, we want to discuss how writing competencies that pupils develop as cultural practices and values change when the media ecology changes. It is suggested that, when writing essays at school, pupils use experiences and strategies from a range of media. In so doing, we suggest the abandoning of the old dominant and Romantic conception based on a distinction between fact and fiction in favour of the experience from everything being mediated, i.e. a transformed epistemology as a result of media reflexivity.