Läsning och arbete med skönlitteratur i skolan förknippas ofta starkt med svenskämnet. I den här boken lyfter författaren fram skönlitteraturens roll i kunskapsutveckling och lärande även i andra ämnen än svenska. Här beskrivs bland annat läsningens grundförutsättningar – textsamtal och omläsning – som tillsammans skapar den djupläsning som leder till gediget lärande.

Med avstamp i litteraturdidaktisk teori om läsning och litterära föreställningsvärldar resonerar författaren om hur lärare och elever i ett antal svenska och amerikanska klassrum arbetar med skönlitterära texter med historiskt innehåll och med fokus på migration, miljö och etik. Barns och ungdomars läsglädje är grundläggande, och genom välstrukturerade textsamtal, goda lässtrategier och engagerande ämnen väcks elevernas läslust och kunskapandet tar fart.

Lärande genom skönlitteratur vänder sig till lärarstuderande och verksamma lärare i grundskolans olika ämnen, inte minst samhällsorienterande och naturorienterande ämnen.

My interest and talk concerns how to use historical text in close reading within the school subject History. The presentation is both didactic and literary. In my doctoral thesis from 2010, I studied 11-year-olds reading Maj Bylock ́s fictional historical trilogy about the Viking era. I analysed the novel Drakskeppet (1997) and made comparisons to the children’s historybooks. The thesis consists of a textual analysis part and an empirical one; the latter is discussion-based learning and shows results of close reading. My further empirical material consists of text talks to 11-year -olds during about seven months’ time with historical texts as the main text during lessons. I will in my presentation discuss three texts used in the learning process: a text from the middle ages and also Ronja, The Robber’s daughter by Astrid Lindgren as well as an American historical novel.The main subject is : Can text talks and close reading improve historical knowledge? There are two main aspects of the research: the didactic research question is how to become a reader with a deep understanding of text and the historical research area is about how to achieve a better understanding in the school subject History by discussions. The didactic methods and theoretical framework used are text talks inspired by professor Judith Langer, University of Albany, USA. Her work and ideas in Envisioning Literature: Literary Understanding and Literature Instruction (2010) is used. Her "envisioning buildning" structure including questions is used in close reading of texts, preferably historical texts. Her associate researchers Mary Adler and Eija Rougle has operationalized her work and give examples of close reading and discussion-based learning. My presentation will altogether discuss the impact historical fiction can have on the young people’s understanding of both the past and our time as well as howtexts may be best used in order to create knowledge and understanding of the past. Empirical classroom work about text talks will be included and some of the text discuss emigration and diaspora linked to research by Robin Cohen.

In my thesis “It could just as well have happened today”: Maj Bylock's Drakskeppstrilogi and historical consciousness in ten- to twelve-year-olds, I provide a textual, thematic analysis of the three novels from 1997–1998. Further, in an empirical study I have documented the reading of Bylock's fictitious, historical trilogy about the Viking era as done by 11-year-old children, whose thematic work and development of a historical consciousness also have been part of the study. This article deals only with the textual analysis aspect, which purpose is to show what in the texts might produce a historical consciousness in children as well as how the characters are portrayed in order for children to identify with them. Two functions of the novels are studied: knowledge and analogy. The focus is on the main character Petite/Åsa and her development with a view to gender, ethnicity and class as seen from an intersectional perspective. I use postcolonial concepts such as diaspora and hybrid identity in order to describe cultural encounters brought on by migration. I portray female characters gaining a higher level of empowerment, a term used by Joanne Brown and Nancy St. Clair. Bylock claims that she is reflecting the present in her historical texts and that this is more straightforwardly achieved when the events are set several hundred years ago. As a result irrelevant details can be removed and the focus be placed on timeless, human phenomena, for instance cultural encounters. In the light of the above and ideas about how best to describe cultural encounters I analyse the cultural contexts in which the main character finds herself focusing on her transition from a girl into a woman and her quest for a multicultural identity. I elaborate on the concepts mentioned in the previous by describing two cultural encounters which provide an analogy with the present.

In my thesis “It could just as well have happened today”: Maj Bylock's Drakskeppstrilogi and historical consciousness in ten- to twelve-year-olds, I provide a textual, thematic analysis of the three novels from 1997–1998. Further, in an empirical study I have documented the reading of Bylock's fictitious, historical trilogy about the Viking era as done by 11-year-old children, whose thematic work and development of a historical consciousness also have been part of the study. This article deals only with the textual analysis aspect, which purpose is to show what in the texts might produce a historical consciousness in children as well as how the characters are portrayed in order for children to identify with them. Two functions of the novels are studied: knowledge and analogy. The focus is on the main character Petite/Åsa and her development with a view to gender, ethnicity and class as seen from an intersectional perspective. I use postcolonial concepts such as diaspora and hybrid identity in order to describe cultural encounters brought on by migration. I portray female characters gaining a higher level of empowerment, a term used by Joanne Brown and Nancy St. Clair. Bylock claims that she is reflecting the present in her historical texts and that this is more straightforwardly achieved when the events are set several hundred years ago. As a result irrelevant details can be removed and the focus be placed on timeless, human phenomena, for instance cultural encounters. In the light of the above and ideas about how best to describe cultural encounters I analyse the cultural contexts in which the main character finds herself focusing on her transition from a girl into a woman and her quest for a multicultural identity. I elaborate on the concepts mentioned in the previous by describing two cultural encounters which provide an analogy with the present.

Background: In my licentiate thesis The Reading of Fiction and Historical Awareness in Pre-Teenage Children (2007) I studied 11-year-olds reading Maj Bylock's fictional historical trilogy about the Viking era. In my continued work I analyse these novels: Drakskeppet (1997), Det gyllene svärdet (1999), and Borgen i fjärran (1999). Maj Bylock says that she reflects the present time in her historical texts and this is easier to do when events are placed several hundred years back in time. All irrelevant details may then be removed and timeless human issues instead given prominence. One human issue can be cultural encounters. The aim of the text analysis is to show the textual conditions for reading, which may help pupils become involved in their own historical awareness and identify with the characters in the novels. I study two particular functions of the historical novel: impressions of knowledge and analogy. Focusing on the main character Petite's development and intersectionality in order to compare gender, ethnicity, and class, I use postcolonial concepts to describe cultural encounters generated by migration, diaspora, and hybrid identity. I further portray female role models as fictional characters. This work focuses mainly on gender as a road towards empowerment, a term used by Brown/St.Clair about historical fiction. From the concepts above and ideas about how cultural encounters can be portrayed I analyse the cultural contexts in which Petite finds herself from the age of a young girl to adulthood, a story of coming of age. I will describe three examples of cultural encounters concerning analogy in the novels.