Source-Based Writing: Students’ Approaches and Critical Aspects of Learning

This study explores upper-secondary school students’ source-based writing skills and what teachers can focus on to improve these skills. The students who participated were enrolled in university preparatory programmes at a Swedish municipal upper-secondary school. The results are based on 73 texts written by students in the subject Swedish (first-language education) and 11 interviews based on the students’ texts. Before the interviews, I went through the students’ texts and prepared questions about their use of sources. I use phenomenography to describe four different ways of using sources and variation theory to identify four critical aspects of learning this skill. To use sources in the most developed way, students need to be able to discern that: (1) acknowledging sources varies with literacy practice; (2) ideas from sources support arguments in own writing; (3) own ideas are separate from those of others; and (4) sources are compared and evaluated throughout the writing process. These critical aspects can be used to plan the teaching of source-based writing for upper-secondary school students.