«Alle disse følelsene og tankene er jo gjennom personal forteller»: Elevers analytiske utforsking av en litterær tekst

This study investigates how analytical exploration of the novel Innsirkling unfolds in literary discussions in the L1-subject Norwegian language arts in high school (first year). The discussions are student-led and arranged in groups. According to the Norwegian Directorate of Education, the students shall explore texts to a greater extent than before. This study contributes new knowledge on this topic. The comparative video analysis shows that students draw analytical aspects into the all the discussions, and that they are particularly interested in exploring literary characters and narrator perspectives. However, the analytical exploration identifies three different ways of how connections between the novel and the analytical terms are made; (1) Text based exploration, which is used by the first student group, entails starting with text examples and then connecting the examples to literary terms. (2) Term based exploration, which is used by the second student group, take analytical questions and terms as a starting point, and then move to text examples from the novel. (3) Alternating exploration, which is used by the third student group, entails moving the discussion back and forth between text based and term-based exploration. I discuss how knowledge of analytical aspects and terms can help students both to discover relevant elements in the novel, as well as how analytical tools and the text can be linked together in an appropriate way in the exploration process.