Research has shown that the ability to reflect upon and engage in discussion around written texts is important for students’ development of writing and reading skills (Lawrence & Snow, 2011). Student participation in conversations is also important, scholars have argued, in that it fosters a unique kind of knowledge-building. Reznitskya et al. (2008) argued that students who engage in dialogue with others are better able to develop and refine their own arguments, as well as learning to accept others’ perspectives. In today’s society, the ability to reflect and form opinions about different topics is crucial. It is not enough to be able to extract information from a text or a statement; you also have to be able to comprehend it and make it your own. The best opportunity for students to develop a qualified approach to literature and its reading is through discussions with high academic demands and plenty of room to develop their own reasoning (Applebee, Langer, Nystrand, & Gamoran, 2003), as it is clear that discussion around texts can enhance learning (Cazden, 2003; Lawrence & Snow, 2011; Nystrand, 1997).

This paper reports on a study of teacher strategies for discussing different types of text/ text genres in ninth-grade Norwegian language arts classrooms. It explores teachers’ moves in the discussion of different texts with students and how these affect the discussions. Textual discussions in Nordic schools aim to stimulate a more nuanced and flexible way of thinking and reasoning regarding the text they have read (Tengberg, 2011). In this light, this paper will investigate such discussions and the different teaching moves and/or strategies teachers use with different types of texts as tools for managing these discussions (e.g., how the teacher asks questions and responds to students’ contributions). When are teachers opening up for students’ interpretation of the text and when do they have a more closed approch to the disscussion, not opening up for new voices.  The texts represented in this material include fiction, chronicles, and articles. The contribution is to get a clearer view on teacher and student dialogs in the classroom, through discussions around a common focus for attention, in this case different types of texts.

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