This presentation aims at discussing how elementary school students doing research can create an arena for literacy events with divergent outcomes. In the approach students as researchers (Kellett 2005, Mason and Watson 2014), students find their own research question, put up hypothesis, make a plan for data collection, gather and analyze data and finally write a report. In the case of this study, the students also submit the report to a research contest for elementary school, organized by the Norwegian Research Council (Nysgjerrigper 2006).

During the students’ research project, the students write all kinds of text, both for the report, to gather information, to plan and for instance to contact experts. This study focuses on the students’ awareness of their writing situations, and further if and to what degree the purpose influences the students’ writing. The purpose includes what the text is used for, its aim (Smidt 2010) and audience awareness (Magnifico 2010). In this presentation, I examine the way the students themselves reflect upon their writing and their decision-making in the literacy events (Barton 2007). My focus is on the students, not the quality of the texts.

My theoretical background is rooted within New Literacy Studies, where literacy as social practices is central (Barton, 2007; Street, 1995). The social aspect is twofold. First literacy is situated, tied to specific situations where text is in use, called literacy events (Barton 2007). Secondly, the texts develop in an interhuman relationship, and play a role in the coexistence between humans (Street 1995). To connect the more general literacy theory to the praxis in school, I use the approach from Kalantziz and Cope (2012). They categorize “literacy pedagogy” according to the contents of literacy knowledge, the organization of the literacy curriculum, how learners are doing literacy and the social relationships of literacy learning (ibid 2012:114). Further, I look to the studies of Larson and Marsh (2005), where literacy education, which is, considers good, but not a representative of a certain school or theory, is analyzed through a theoretical framework. This brings in another theoretical foundation for my study, subject didactics, understood as how a teacher in a certain context realizes a certain content with a group of students (Hudson 2002). Together I approach the case with literacy education / didactics as an offspring.

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