The development of critical reading practices reflects a key component in an education for democratic citizenship, which also is addressed in recent curriculum reforms in Sweden as well as many other countries. This presentation is part of a larger study designed to improve proficiency in critical reading related to argumentative texts. The study concerns implementation of dialogic reading strategies in teaching Swedish as first language, planned in close cooperation between researchers and teachers (Olin-Scheller, Tengberg & Lindholm, 2015). In this presentation challenges in learning and instruction are further explored through close video-analysis of classroom interactions. We draw on social perspectives on literacy described within the New Literacy Studies (Barton, 2007; Street, 1984) and view teachers’ and students’ interactions around the texts as literacy events. Conversation analysis, CA, is used for close examination of the interactions. We especially focus on how participants use verbal language, bodily stance and texts as material structures to organize interaction (Goodwin 2000; 2007) and the organization of learning as social actions (Melander& Sahlström, 2009; Lee, 2010; Sahlström, 2011; Tanner, 2014). Eight lessons in year nine were documented with 2-3 video-cameras. Literacy events when students talk to each other or the teacher during seatwork in small groups has been selected and analyzed. Results show that the focused texts (print-, screen- and whiteboard texts) are used as problem solving devices which sometimes constrain the critical discussion that is intended. Besides for pedagogical purposes, the materiality of the texts, in different ways, also become resources to order and control the classroom arena.

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