Skrivande och blivande: konstruktioner av skönlitterärt skrivande i handböcker och läromedel 1979-2015

Writing and becoming : constructions of literary writing in handbooks and textbooks 1979-2015

The focus of this study is descriptions of literary writing in pedagogical texts. The aim is to analyse how writing and writing subjects are constructed in pedagogical texts on writing published in Sweden between 1979 and 2015. The analysed texts comprise three different kinds: handbooks for creative writing, textbooks for upper secondary school and textbooks for teachers of writing. In the thesis the constructions of writing and writing subjects are connected to different discourses of writing as well as ideological tendencies in society.

The study starts by reviewing relevant research about writing in school, in leisure time or in the field of creative writing. Roz Ivanič’s framework for analysing discourses of writing is presented and expanded with two further discourses: the discourse of support and the market discourse. Furthermore, theoretical perspectives from Michel Foucault, Zygmunt Bauman and Richard Sennett are presented.

In the analysis constant and changing norms of writing are discussed in relation to the presented framework and theoretical perspectives. The analysis reveals the close connection between the writer and the written text, in the handbooks and in Strömquist’s Skrivprocessen. To succeed as a writer one needs to start from one’s own experiences, since it is crucial to put something personal, a part of oneself, into the writing. At the same time writing is said to create the writing subject, which means that one should both find – or create – and express the self through writing. After this, writing as either work or play, and the purpose of writing, are analysed. Chapter three discusses the handbooks and is chronologically structured. While writing during the 1980s was constructed as a political act, in recent years it is instead constructed as an activity aimed at finding happiness or making money. Chapter four analyses the textbook Svenska timmar and shows how literary writing was a key part of textbook writing in 1989, but is almost non-existent in the textbook from 2011. The construction of the writing subject goes from the playful and creative writer, to a writer concerned with being correct and writing accurately. In chapter five the results are linked to tendencies in society. The changes in the constructions of literary writing can be seen as part of a neo-liberal, individualized ideology, as well as an exception from, or counterpart, to the same. The final chapter concludes by discussing the constructions of writing and writing subjects, focusing on the connection between writing and reading – and the handbook as a genre.