In times of climate crisis education needs to get students to experience, understand and put into words the problems we face. Accordingly, an educational practice needs to be developed that encourage students to reflect on what it means to be human in relation to other species. For this, literary texts can be used, not only to create knowledge about biological diversity but also to create hope for possible futures.  

Earlier, Lyngfelt and Söderberg (2021) have demonstrated how knowledge about the relationship between ecological, economic and social sustainable development can be explored educationally by the use of narratology; ‘voices’ in literary texts are linked to voices of prospective students in classrooms, making it possible to explore the interdependence of ecological, economic and social sustainability. The study proposed draws on this conception of narratology and understands eco-literacy as an interaction between creative inarticulacy and creative articulations. This approach is theoretically based on Gadamer’s interest for the interplay between ‘the known’ and ‘unknown’, and the meaning of ‘horizons of understanding’ (Gadamer, 2004). Additionally, Bakhtin’s perception of dialogue is important here, since it focuses on what difference communication does to us rather than on dialogue itself (Bakhtin, 1999). The study proposed draws on this by considering the polyphony of voices in a classroom to be utterances reflecting a variety of dimensions of contexts in time and space. A listener response approach to polyphony, including both listeners’ criticism and self-criticism, is suggested to be able to develop understanding in terms of sensitiveness and attention (Adelmann, 2012). To focus interaction between closeness and distance to literary texts, is here important to understand the interplay between sensitiveness and attention to eco-systems and biological diversities. It is this understanding that makes work with eco-literacy possible, defining it as a reflecting educational practice, crucial for work with sustainability at school.

To sum up, this study aims at investigating how literary texts can be used to create knowledge about biological diversity and climate change through shared reading, and by doing so explore possibilities of shared reading sessions to create hope for possible futures.

The research questions are as follows:

1. Do shared reading sessions create reader engagement and possibilities for readers to position themselves in relation to societal challenges due to climate change, and in that case how does shared reading methodologically promote this process?

2.Do shared reading sessions, according to the readers, create hope and a sense of agency individually and collectively? If so, how is this reader response related to the choice of texts and the performance of the shared reading sessions?

Shared reading, as used by The Reader Organisation in the UK (https://www.thereader.org.uk), is based on the idea that literature by providing a shared language helps us to understand ourselves and others better. During shared reading sessions listening is stressed. Participants are encouraged to respond by sharing feelings and thoughts provoked by the reading. A point here is to connect inner lives to outer lives, including non-human beings. By doing so development of eco-literacy, as a process, is supported. The literary texts are chosen based on the idea that they encourage development of knowledge about sustainability as a complex area of knowledge. Five texts will be used, either poems or short stories. 10-12 year-old students will participate in the study, in nine reading groups from three schools. The study includes data collection during twelve weeks. Self-report measures are used to grasp sensitiveness and attention to climate change used before and after two periods of six weeks. For qualitative analysis, group sessions are audio- and videorecorded. Interviews with individual participants are audio-recorded, transcribed and analysed.

The project introduces a new reading practice in the Swedish school context and opens the way for evaluating it. Characteristic of shared reading is reading aloud in a group, and the encouragement of conversations focused on emotions and thoughts evoked by the literature (itself). No comments from the readers are judged or subject to any kind of assessment. Additionally, reading engagement is given a new meaning, since literature's (possible) ability to contribute to agency is linked to agency outside the classroom. In the presentation an earlier study (Lyngfelt and Söderberg, 2021) is used to discuss possible future results in the study proposed. Examples from a study about picture books, evoking thoughts about the meaning of ecological, economic and social sustainability, is demonstrated and related to classroom work.

Adelmann, K. (2012). The Art of Listening in an Educational Perspective. Educational Inquiry.3 (4): 513-534. Bakhtin, M. (1982). The Dialogic Imagination. University of Chicago Press. Gadamer, H-G. (2004). Truth and Method. Bloomsbury Publishing. Goga, N. & Guanio-Uluru, L. (2019). Ecocritical perspectives on Nordic children’s and young adult literature. Barnelitterært forskningstidskrift. 10 (1). IPCC (2022). Climate Change 2022. Impacts, Adaptations and Vulnerability. Summary for Policymakers.https://report.ipcc.ch/ar6wg2/pdf/IPCC_AR6_WGII_SummaryForPolicymakers.pdf Lyngfelt, A. & Söderberg, E. (2021). Att göra sin röst hörd – en didaktiskt orienterad bilderboksanalys av Naturen och Mitt bottenliv – av en ensam axolotl. Forskning om undervisning och lärande. 3, vol. 9 s. 28-47. The Reader Organisation. (2022). www. https://www.thereader.org.uk. Retrieved 2022-04-26.