This presentation focuses particularly on text-based interaction in lower secondary classrooms and emphasizes the ways in which teachers engage students in meaningful and cognitively challenging discussions about text. By using video data from language arts lessons we compare patterns of interaction and the structures of engaging dialogue about texts in Norway and Sweden, countries with similar educational traditions. Previous research has characterized literacy learning as a constructive and participatory process, challenging the traditional view of classroom instruction as a process of transmission and learning as acquisition (Lapp, Flood & Farnan, 2015; Nystrand; 2006; Sfard, 1998). A growing number of studies provide empirical evidence of ways in which a collaborative exchange of ideas and a more dialogic approach to text use in the classroom fosters comprehension and empowers literacy learners (Almasi, O’Flavahan, & Arya, 2001; Murphy et al., 2009; Reninger & Wilkinson, 2010). As for the Nordic countries like Sweden and Norway, studies indicate that students receive extended opportunities to engage in classroom talk and share alternative perspectives on text and writing, but the evidence is mixed. In Sweden, recent surveys has indicated that collaborative work on authentic text is still rare (cf. Swedish Schools Inspectorate, 2012), but more solid evidence for the use and quality of text-based interaction in Swedish and Norwegian schools are still scarce. The present study draws on video recordings from more than 200 language arts lessons in Norway and over 60 language arts lessons in Sweden in order to analyze the quality of prevalent teaching practices. Each class was followed over the course of four consecutive lessons. The video analyses focus on the extent to which instruction provide students with intellectually challenging opportunities for content-related talk, and opportunities for discourse and deep-oriented analysis of authentic texts. Preliminary findings indicate that student participation Swedish classrooms is generally requested and appreciated by teachers, and experience-related talk associated to subject content is common. However, more rarely are students called upon to provide extended content-specific or analytic contributions to more cognitively challenging tasks. In Norwegian classrooms, there are fewer opportunities to discuss text, and the texts play a limited and rather narrower role when such discussions occur. References to the content of the text focus on recall of specific details. Often, the Norwegian teachers use texts primarily to model how students themselves should write.

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