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YEAR 8 STUDENTS’ INTERPREATIONS OF SHORT STOR IES IN THE DANISH L1 LITERATURE CLASSROOM Distinct ways of writing and knowing

Lower secondary students’ written responses to literature in the first-language (L1) classroom have received only limited scholarly attention in Denmark. To develop a greater understanding of this form of text participation, this article examines how year 8 students (age 13 – 14) use literary terms and construct evaluative stances in interpretations of contemporary short stories. The article introduces a functional linguistic and sociological framework which enables the identification of fine-grained meaning-making patterns and their subsequent translation into broader knowledge tendencies. The principal finding is the presence of three distinct and, to a certain extent, contending knowledge tendencies reflected and co-created in the students’ written language use. The detected differences in ways of writi ng and knowing render visible challenges associated with using literary terms and expressing the appropriate degree of subjectivity at the lower secondary level. Additionally, the identified differences also render visible the transitional nature of the L1 literature classroom at this educational level in Denmark. Taken together, the findings indicate the need for intensified discussions among teachers and researchers regarding what is important, and why, when students are required to engage in interpretive writing tasks in the L1 literature classroom.


INTRODUCTION
Students' text creation during their first-language (L1) literature education can take many forms, and it has been found to vary across both different educational stages (Krogh & Piekut, 2015;Schneuwly et al., 2017) and national borders (Johansson, 2015;Torell, 2002). In Denmark, students' L1 writing has been only sparsely examined, mainly within the broader context of exploring the transition between lower and upper secondary school (Christensen et al., 2014;Krogh & Jakobsen, 2019). Consequently, there is a lack of knowledge regarding the characteristics of lower secondary students' written responses in the literature classroom, despite the emphasis placed on fiction as a privileged genre within the national L1 curriculum (Gourvennec et al., 2020). In the present article I address this gap in the literature by examining year 8 students' (aged 13-14) written interpretations of contemporary short stories. Lower secondary school represents a decisive and, in many ways, transitional level of education that is important for Danish students' personal and educational trajectories as it is their final mandatory level of education; and this suggests the need for further research on writing at this particular educational level before students move on to vocational or general upper secondary education. A more in-depth understanding of what characterises written interpretations as a key form of subject-specific or disciplinary writing within compulsory L1 education in Denmark (Shanahan & Shanahan, 2008 should reveal meaning-making possibilities, and so support students' access to, and co-construction of, valuable ways of participating in the literature classroom (Halliday, 1993;Kress et al., 2005;Kress, 2010). Such knowledge should also provide insights of relevance from a national comparative perspective.
In my examination of students' responses, I concentrate on their subtle ways of balancing analytical requirements and subjectivity. The examination is conducted against the backdrop of a current literature-related pedagogical dilemma facing Danish L1 education, which, on the one hand, emphasises an analytical approach and concept-driven orientation at lower secondary level (Rørbech & Skyggebjerg, 2020) and, on the other hand, highlights the importance of an experience-based approach and the value of personal experiences (Krogh & Piekut, 2015;Rødnes, 2014). In the paper I examine how students use literary terms and construct evaluative stances (e.g., Hood, 2010Hood, , 2012Macken-Horarik & Isaac, 2014). I then use a sociological toolkit developed by Maton (2016) to translate meaning-making patterns in students' written interpretations into knowledge tendencies inherent in this form of disciplinary writing. In this way, this article seeks to address the question of what counts-as well as what should count-with regard to interpretive tasks in the L1 literature classroom, which Macken-Horarik (2006) has referred to as a double-faced "janus construct". She argues that, on the one hand, students are often asked to write about their thoughts concerning works of fiction, while, on the other, some repertoires, some forms of text participation "are more highly valued than others" (Macken-Horarik, 2006, p. 53).
The present study formed part of a larger multi-case study where I sought to investigate literacy practices in three year 8 literature classrooms in three different schools located in the vicinity of Copenhagen (Kabel, 2016(Kabel, , 2017. I explored students' choice of stance-taking resources in their written interpretations, and related the meaning-making patterns I detected within these texts both to the same students' reflections on writing in the L1 literature classroom and to the resources students were encouraged to apply in their writing. In this article, I use the students' written interpretations as empirical material, which allows for an in-depth analysis of the key linguistic features of the selected texts. Moreover, it allows for the linguistic and sociological framework to be refined in order to account in a more nuanced manner for the ways of writing and knowing inherent within this specific form of L1 writing. The two research questions that this article seeks to answer are as follows: • What characterises lower secondary L1 students' ways of writing interpretations of contemporary short stories? • In what ways do the meaning-making patterns detected within the written interpretations translate into knowledge tendencies?
The remainder of the article is structured as follows. The next section sets out the background to the study in two parts. First, by providing a brief overview of recent and current tendencies and approaches to interpretive writing tasks within lower secondary Danish L1 literature education; second, by presenting relevant research concerning students' written responses to literature, with a focus on Scandinavian research. Subsequently, the theoretical framework for the study is introduced and the methodological considerations described, before the two research questions are addressed and the findings of the study are discussed.

Pedagogical waves in Danish L1 literature education
A historical analysis of formal national curricula and textbooks (Sørensen, 2008) has revealed that a text-oriented pedagogy strongly inspired by the New Criticism movement (e.g., Brooks, 1947) dominated the compulsory Danish L1 literature classroom during the latter part of the twentieth century. However, the 1990s also saw the rise of reader-oriented pedagogies inspired by reader response theories (Iser, 1972;Rosenblatt, 1938), intertwined with a generally student-centred pedagogy (Hetmar, 1996;Steffensen, 2005). The coexistence of different pedagogical approaches was also recognisable in neighbouring Sweden and Norway, as underscored by Rødnes (2014), who distinguished between analytical and experience-based approaches to interpretive tasks in order to describe the most prominent literary pedagogies in Scandinavian L1 education since the turn of the millennium.
A recent mixed-methods study of Danish L1 literature textbooks used in compulsory schooling has contributed further nuances to this picture of the prevailing approaches to interpretive tasks (Bundsgaard et al., 2020;Rørbech & Skyggebjerg, 2020). The study noted the presence of approaches rooted in both textand reader-oriented pedagogies, yet it also identified subtle differences between the different levels of compulsory schooling. The most popular textbooks in upper primary (years 4 to 6) seem to allow for student experimentation and a freer approach to fictional works, whereas the most popular textbooks in lower secondary (years 7 to 9) currently appear to favour a more scientific discourse, an analytical and concept-driven orientation. The authors argue that such a scientific discourse has become increasingly dominant over the last decade (Rørbech & Skyggebjerg, 2020, p. 3). Thus, it appears that the waves of pedagogical trends seen in recent decades are currently identifiable in different levels of schooling.

Writing in the L1 literature classroom
When it comes to writing tasks in the L1 literature classroom, Rosenblatt (1938Rosenblatt ( , 1980 informed d a number of studies concerning students' written interpretations; those studies, however, differed in their approach from the present study. For example, Marshall (1987) explored writing in the L1 literature classroom in the United States and distinguished between personal writing (i.e., a subjective reaction to fiction) and formal writing (i.e., interpretation in an extended way). Likewise, Schneuwly et al. (2017) demonstrated how reader subjectivity had become something acknowledged by teachers, reflected in classroom activities, and fostered through what the authors term metatextual writing practices (i.e., writing about texts as in responses). In general, and furthered by Rosenblatt's (1938Rosenblatt's ( , 1980 transactional theory and the notion of efferent and aesthetic stances, the question of subjectivity in L1 student writing partially overlaps with what this article, following Rødnes (2014), terms experience-based approaches.
In comparison to prior studies rooted primarily in literary theory, the present study takes inspiration from a functional linguistic approach to students' disciplinary writing within the L1 literature classroom. Such an approach provides tools for exploring in more detail the identified subjectivity and the subtle ways of construing it in written interpretations. In an Australian educational context, Macken-Horarik (2003 examined lower secondary students' written interpretations on the basis of a Hallidayan concept of voicing and with reference to analytical tools drawn from the appraisal system developed to map interpersonal meaning-making beyond the clause at the semantic level (Martin & White, 2005;Rothery & Stenglin, 2000). Macken-Horarik distinguished between students' tactical interpretations and their symbolic interpretations, and she argued that the latter are more valued in lower secondary English L1. She suggested that people tend to react subjectively to works of fiction, although she showed how the evaluative stance associated with a symbolic interpretation is not "overly subjective" (Macken-Horarik, 2020, p. 57). In this way, she identified subtle differences between out-of-school and L1 written responses to fiction, despite such writing often being an open interpretive task in the literature classroom at the lower secondary level. Consequently, as mentioned in the introduction to this article, Macken-Horarik (2006) termed this type of task a "janus construct". As in these studies, the present study applies a focus on interpersonal meaning-making as key in student's written interpretations; however, it also includes a focus on the use of literary terms, which serves to broaden the examination and facilitate approaching not only ways of positioning oneself in written interpretations but also the suggested scientific discourse (Rørbech & Skyggebjerg, 2020) in the lower secondary Danish L1 literature classroom.
Only a few studies have been undertaken of Danish L1 writing at lower secondary level, and for the most part those did not focus particularly on writing in the literature classroom (Bremholm et al., 2018;Christensen et al., 2014). One notable exception is the work of Krogh and Piekut (2015), who suggested that personal experiences are valued alongside more creative text formats or "productive analysis" in the year 9 Danish L1 literature classroom. The authors contrasted this with general upper secondary education, which remains dominated by a text-oriented pedagogy and "direct analysis". Their suggestion resonates with a cross-national finding from Sweden. As part of a larger curriculum study, Sjöstedt (2013) compared L1 students' written interpretations in Denmark and Sweden. He found that students in the first year of general upper secondary Danish L1 education seemed to use literary terms such as "the protagonist" in their written interpretations, whereas students in Sweden did not. Thus, the Danish L1 written interpretations reflected an analytical rather than an experience-based and subjective approach. Sjöstedt's (2013) study showed similarities with a number of comparative Swedish studies that identified marked national differences in the ways in which L1 students write interpretations, including their use of literary terms (Johansson, 2015;Torell, 2002). In comparison, this article contributes further by investigating the use of literary terms, particularly their prominence in the text, as well as how that use may form patterns in combination with the way in which students construct evaluative stances in their written interpretations.
The present study also notes important findings from Scandinavian studies on exam writing. As part of a text anthropological study, Troelsen (2020) explored the year 9 Danish L1 written composition exam genre, in which students are typically required to write in either the fictional or journalistic genre. Comparing students' exam writing and external examiners' assessment, the study found that "personally engaging texts are rewarded with higher grades" (Troelsen, 2020, p. 127). This finding resonates with the findings of a Norwegian study (Berge et al., 2005) that employed a social semiotic framework to explore year 10 (equivalent to year 9 in Denmark) L1 students' written composition exam texts, in which students were asked to write fictional narratives (e.g., short stories and fairy tales) or texts that involved adopting a stance for or against something. While the students who wrote narrative texts more easily used their own expressions (Berge et al., 2005, p. 187), the low-achieving students who wrote opinions found it difficult to link their personal experiences with their subject-matter knowledge. Thus, within the Scandinavian context, both Troelsen (2020) and Berge et al. (2005) found that text genres in L1 lower secondary exam writing asked for -and to an extent rewardedexpressions and experiences in the students' own voices. In the non-fictional writing that involved stance-taking; however, Berge et al. (2005) highlighted the challenges associated with achieving an appropriate amount of expressed subjectivity.
In sum, lower secondary students' L1 writing, including their ways of writing interpretations in the literature classroom, has received only limited scholarly attention in Denmark. Lower secondary education may allow room for personal experiences and more creative text formats (Krogh & Piekut, 2015) and a more scientific discourse in the literature classroom (Rørbech & Skyggebjerg, 2020). When the present study concentrates on students' use of literary terms and their ways of constructing evaluative stances, it does so in dialogue with, and in order to extend, both cross-national student text studies and studies emphasising subtle ways of expressing subjectivity as being key in relation to written interpretations (e.g., Berge et al., 2005, Macken-Horarik, 2020.

Disciplinary writing and the notion of text
With reference to Shanahan (2008, 2020), the disciplinary writing considered in this article addresses specialised and sophisticated ways of writing and knowing within the subject of Danish L1 at the lower secondary education level. However, in accordance with the social semiotic understanding adopted in the present article (Halliday, 1993;Kress et al., 2005;Kress, 2010), a context-oriented understanding of disciplinary writing is pursued; I view disciplinary writing as being linked not only to practices initiated in, for example, tertiary education and research or by adult experts, but also to writing practices at a particular school level, in a particular school subject, and in a particular content area within that school subject. In turn, I view these practices as being formed by mandated educational policies (Doecke & Van de Ven, 2012), including formal national curricula and exam requirements, by pedagogical trends within the school discipline, by local school practices, and by students and their "social histories" (Kress, 2010, p. 240). Consequently, when students' choice of meaning-making resources in their written interpretations is examined, I am interested not in individual trademarks but in meaning-making patterns in a smaller number of written texts. Moreover, I view the written interpretations chosen for in-depth analysis as instances of the same register closely related to a situation type rather than to "a particular situation considered as unique", as described by Halliday (2002, p. 55). In other words, there are certain ritualised ways of making meaning in relation to a school subject; these are transparent and related to students as interpreters at any given time, to their meaning-making repertoires, and to the writing task within the classroom and the values involved, which are formed, for example, by current policies, pedagogies, and more local practices.

Technicality and evaluating stances
When I map students' use of literary terms as one key linguistic feature of their written interpretations, I employ a functional linguistic framework that allows for a focus on technicality. More specifically, I focus on one aspect of technicality: the use of technical terms or scientific concepts (Schleppegrell, 2004, p. 137;see also Vygotski, 1986). Attention is paid to students' use of literary terms such a "point of view" and "protagonist", including whether such terms are syntactically foregrounded or backgrounded. For example, these might be assigned a prominent position when functioning as hyper-themes (Halliday & Matthiessen, 2004). In addition, when I map students' ways of constructing evaluative stances, I do so with reference to Hood (2010Hood ( , 2012. Over the last twenty years, there has been growing research interest in interpersonal meaning-making conceptualised both as evaluation within a social semiotic tradition (Bednarek, 2006;Hunston & Thompson, 2001;Thompson & Alba-Juez, 2014) and as stance within a sociolinguistic tradition (Conrad & Biber, 2001;Du Bois, 2007;Hyland & Guinda, 2012;Jaffe, 2009). When I employ the term "evaluative stance", I consider evaluation to incorporate "all aspects of interpersonal meaning encoded in texts and functioning to construe stance or point of view" (Hood, 2010, p. 7). In line with this approach, I use semantic tools from the appraisal framework developed within the field of systemic functional linguistics to describe this type of interpersonal meaning (Martin & White, 2005;Rothery & Stenglin, 2000). That is, I use tools to analyse profoundly interpersonal forms of meaning-making that involve communicative positioning (Thompson, 2014). Weight is placed on "the contextual specificity of evaluation" (Macken-Horarik & Isaac, 2014, p. 70) in an effort to avoid the potential mega-system of appraisal. This means that the most relevant analytical categories are selected, whereas others are omitted. I distinguish between three ways of describing attitude as: • "affect" (emotional lexis) • the "judgement" of humans • the "appreciation" of entities The examination includes indirect valence and attitude to the extent that such meaning is convincingly shaped by the co-text. The appraisal framework also includes tools for describing engagement. I distinguish between propositions that do or do not explicitly allow for dialogistic alternatives: that is, between "monoglossic" and "heteroglossic" language use. Monoglossic language use refers to bare assertions (i.e., when student writers formulate a sentence containing an interpretation as a fact), whereas heteroglossic language use refers to "contractive" and "expansive" resources (i.e., when student writers signal other voices than the authorial one).
In the case of "contractive" resources, I remodel appraisal to a certain extent (Macken-Horarik & Isaac, 2014); I consider contractive language use to be established through, for example, words and phrases used to refer to the fictional text, because their function is to close down the space for alternative interpretations. An example of such contractive language use can be seen in the following sentence: "You surely see that on page xx...". Words and phrases that explicitly mark dialogue are also contractive, for example, "of course" and "admittedly" (Martin & White, 2005, p. 134). In the case of references to the fictional text, I distinguish between more subjective and more objective language use, as inspired by a similar division of modality highlighted in the work of Halliday and Matthiessen (2004, p. 620; see also Hood, 2016;Martin & White, 2005, p. 131;Matruglio, 2014). So while student writers signal dialogistic alternatives, they may do so in, for example, a very objective way, which tones down the subjectivity expressed. Expansive language use is established through the use of words and phrases that explicate the subjective grounding of an assertion and so allow room for other interpretations: for example, "I think that..." or "His act probably means...". The notion of appraisal, characterises direct quotations from other texts as additional examples of expansive language use, because another voice is being explicated; however, when students use quotations from the short stories to support a claim, I consider such usage to be a contractive meaning-making choice.

Knowledge tendencies
Two complementary frameworks are incorporated in the paper: while the functional linguistic framework is used to analyse technicality and evaluative stance-taking, sociological knowledge theory (Christie, 2016;Maton, 2007Maton, , 2014Maton, , 2016 is used to explore the ways in which meaning-making patterns within Danish L1 students' written interpretations translate into broader knowledge tendencies (RQ2). The concepts incorporated from sociological knowledge theory thus constitute a "translation device" (Maton et al., 2016, p. 100) that enables the scope of the study to be expanded from an analysis of the more fine-grained meaning-making choices to the knowledge tendencies reflected in writing. More specifically, inspiration is taken from the notion of specialisation codes (Maton, 2014), which builds on Bernstein's (1996) suggestion of knowledge structures within educational fields as well as on a "collection code" (strong classification) and an "integrated code" (weak classification). Maton (2010) developed this framework further by incorporating knowers, which resulted in the idea of knowledge-knower structures that are "analytically distinguishable" (p. 161) and that describe the rules of the game within, for example, a particular school subject or a content area within a school subject (Maton, 2014, p. 77). There may be more than one code present, and the dominant code may change across educational stages or even classrooms. In this article, I avoid using notions of structures and codes, both of which imply some kind of knowledge basis independent of students as socially formed people and individual interpreters within the classroom (Kress et al., 2005). Instead, I interpret the meaning-making choices and detected patterns as reflecting knowledge tendencies, which are cocreated during the writing process and closely related to the socially recognisable situation type: the writing task completed by the students. In this study, the following three tendencies proved valuable to capture the transition between writing and knowledge tendencies (see, e.g., Maton, 2014, pp. 30-31): • Knowledge, where procedures, skills, and specialised and fact-oriented knowledge of the specific objects of study are foregrounded, while students' attitudes and dispositions are backgrounded. • Knower, where students' subjective contributions (attitudes and dispositions) are foregrounded, while procedures, skills, and specialised and fact-oriented knowledge of the specific objects of study are backgrounded. • Elite, where both knowledge and knowers are legitimate and present simultaneously.
An analytical mapping of interpersonal meaning and particular attitudes inevitably invites a translation to knower tendencies by way of a focus on subjective contributions with regard to evaluations. However, the linguistic framework used in the present study allows for other nuances due to the included focus on technicality. Vocabulary belonging to an everyday domain.
Evaluative stance (attitude) Affect (emotional language use) in the third person and words and phrases of judgements and appreciation.
Affect (emotional language use) in the third person and words and phrases of judgement and appreciation.
Optionally, emotional language use in the first person, direct and indirect appreciation of own values.
(engagement) Monoglossic language use and more objective contractive language use when referring to the short story (e.g., "the short story demonstrates...", avoidance of personal pronouns); and More subjective contractive language use when referring to the short story (e.g., "you surely see that on page xx..."); contractive language use that explicitly marks dialogue (e.g., "of course"); and expanding language use, "attribute" (direct reference to, for example, other Danish L1 texts). expanding language use that underscores the subjective grounding of an interpretive statement. Table 1 shows how I interpret the linguistic and sociologic concepts included in the framework. The combination of a knowledge and knower tendency-an elite tendency-may take different forms. The word "elite" does not signal a more valued or attractive tendency, but reflects a combination of the other two tendencies.

Selected data
The full study comprised three cases (Flyvbjerg, 2006), which in turn comprised units of work on short stories conducted in three year 8 classes in three different schools. The three schools each cater to different groups: suburban upper middle class (North), suburban lower and middle class (West), and sub-urban middle class (South). The data used in the present study were selected from units of work completed during the second semester during the 2013-2014 school year (see Table  2). These units were similar in the writing task, although, as natural data, they also display differences. Tasks and classroom contexts are described in more detail in section 5. In all three classes, the students were asked to independently choose their focus in their written responses to a short story and to justify their analytical choices. This kind of interpretive task reflects expectations concerning the year 9 oral exam, in which Danish L1 students are required to decide what they will focus on in their interpretation of a fictional text and then to justify their choice. In this respect, the tasks were all open and interpretive, although they required both analytical choices and argumentation. Field notes and handouts (e.g., copies of teachers' PowerPoint presentations) from the three units of work (a total of 41 lessons, with each lesson having a duration of around 45 minutes).

Key texts and coding
As shown in Table 2, the analytical process involved selecting two key texts from each class to observe possible variations in ways of writing and knowing within each class. In Denmark, written assignments in lower secondary education are typically not graded, so it was not possible to use grades as an entry point for selecting texts that would optionally display variations. Instead, the selection reflected the analytical process. I determined the chosen texts to be key because they highlighted the more latent judgements made regarding the salient patterns within the data on the basis of my first read-through of all the responses (Erickson, 1986;Kroon & Sturm, 2007). Thus, the key texts epitomise and exemplify the similarities and differences within each literature classroom. The analytical process led to the remodelling of the tools from the appraisal system and the inclusion of a more detailed examination of technicality (the use of literary terms) and the sociological conceptual toolkit (e.g., Maton, 2016). I conducted and maintained the coding of the words and phrases used to construct evaluative stances in Word by using different colours (attitude), bold text (direct attitude), and italics (engagement), as well as by including interpretive comments in a separate column, which involved a further analysis of technicality. After these initial analytical steps, I identified any similarities and differences in the students' language use within each case before conducting an interpretation of the knowledge tendencies. After this, I compared all three cases and focused on the main similarities and differences in the students' ways of writing and knowing across the three literature classrooms.

CLASSROOM CONTEXT: THREE SIMILAR WRITING TASKS
This section provides further information about the classroom context: the concrete writing tasks involved in each unit of work as well as the main guidelines and resources made available by the (Danish L1) teacher in each class. Class North worked on the short story "Umbrella, window niche, laces" ("Paraply, vinduesniche, snørebånd"), written by the Danish author Christian Kampmann in 1962. In groups, the students were asked to write a manuscript for a literary conversation in which they discussed their analysis and interpretation of the short story (involving the roles of a host and two to three guests as if in a literary conversation in a broadcast programme). At the beginning of the unit of work, the students were re-introduced to literary terms that could be used to analyse and interpret literature. These terms were displayed on an A3 poster entitled "The Short Story Fixer" ("NovelleFixeren"), which was taken from a widely used textbook designed to prepare students for the year 9 oral and written exams (Kongsted et al., 2010). The terms were organised in a number of main topics, including composition (e.g., "flash back" and "flash forward") and narrator (e.g., "first-person narrator" and different points of view). Prompted by a question from a student following the introduction of the writing task, the teacher emphasised that the students were not required to present their opinions on the short story, but rather, to present the analytical material they had developed in their groups.
Class West worked on the short story "Breakfast" ("Morgenmad"), written by Danish author Kim Fupz Aakeson in 2012. They wrote two types of texts. In groups, they produced an instructional material consisting of any analytical and interpretive questions they considered to be relevant. Individually, they wrote a short interpretation in which they had to argue for the most relevant theme within the short story, then describe and reflect upon how their group's questions could guide readers to this theme-in this way, they conducted an analysis and interpretation of their own group's questions. Moreover, they had to suggest and justify the literary terms that were necessary to answer the questions. At the beginning of the unit of work, the students were re-introduced to literary terms they had learned in previous units. They organised these terms into rows on a display board (e.g., one row contained concepts to describe the narrator), and the terms were visible both during the unit on the short story and for the remainder of the semester. During the unit, the students also worked with words and phrases they could use to either open or close down other possible interpretations, and they tried out these meaning-making opportunities in short writing activities during which they answered questions on the short story suggested by another group.
Class South worked on the short story "The Miracle" ("Miraklet"), also written by Danish author Kim Fupz Aakeson, this time in 1995. Each student was assigned an individual written interpretation and asked to decide on three things to focus on, then to justify their analytical choice. During the unit of work, the teacher pointed out similarities between the task and the year 9 oral exam. The teacher explicitly stated that the students should not write about everything, nor should they organise their written interpretation following literary terms such as "environment". If they wrote about the environment, they had to explain why it was relevant. The teacher used concrete wordings to exemplify how they could argue for a chosen focus. Moreover, the teacher emphasised that the students should support their interpretations with examples from the short story if their texts were to be rewarded.
In sum, the writing tasks differed in the degree to which they required group or individual work. Moreover, the writing task in Class North had a more creative strain than the other two tasks, while the writing task in Class West departed slightly from the others due to the required reflection on the instructional material the students had produced in groups. However, I view them as variants of the same open interpretive task.

WRITING AND KNOWING IN EACH CLASSROOM
In each class, there are distinct similarities and differences across the written interpretations, which form distinct meaning-making patterns. In turn, these patterns translate into different knowledge tendencies. The following subsections present the findings concerning each literature classroom.

Class north: Either knowledge or elite
The interpretations written in Class North differ profoundly, and they result in two distinct patterns of meaning-making choices with regard to technicality and evaluative stance-taking. I consider the two divergent patterns to reflect a knowledge tendency and an elite tendency. The divergence is to be understood in light of the writing task and the classroom context. More specifically, the open writing task invited the students to foreground different interpretations in their manuscript for a literary conversation-a form that may also resemble out-of-school conversations regarding fictional texts and so apparently exhibit an overt subjectivity (Macken-Horarik, 2020). At the same time, the students worked with literary terms, and the teacher explicitly asked them to use their analytical material in their text creation. The divergence identified in this class may, therefore, relate to challenges regarding how to balance such requests. The two distinct patterns of meaningmaking choices in the written interpretations are summarised in detail below.

Key text 1-Knowledge
Key text 2-Elite The presence of literary terms-foregrounded. Affect in the third person and judgement. Monoglossic language use and more objective references to the short story.
The presence of literary terms-backgrounded. Affect in the third person and judgement. A high number of heteroglossic resources used in a discussion of different interpretations, including expansive language use and references to the short story.

Similarities
Although all the student groups use literary terms in their manuscripts, they do so in very different ways (their ways of creating technicality will be considered in detail below). Moreover, they all use attitudinal resources targeted towards the main characters. In particular, they focus on describing how the protagonist feels ("It is about a lonely boy") as well as judging his and his mother's actions and sayings ("he is a shy and introverted person"). 1 For more detail, see the illustrative excerpts from the two key texts given in Figure 1.

Key text 1 Script
Host: Today we will be talking about the short story "Umbrella, window niche, laces" with Jeppe, Mads, and Niklas. A: That's an interesting question. It's difficult to say when the text only extends over a single night. It seems to me that the mother is trying to be a good mother. This can be seen in the text when she offers him a glass of champagne, as a gesture that he should participate in her little get-together, but he refuses to take part.
B: It's actually not quite as simple as you describe it. Throughout the story, there are signs of parental failure, which by the way is also the short story's theme. Several places in the text you see examples of the mother completely failing after his father's death; for example, when she says to her rich friends that he has enough in being alone and that he has no friends, without the least thoughtfulness, and at no time does she question her role in Edward's life.
Note: Translated from Danish (spelling mistakes in the original Danish script are not retained in the translation). Student names have been anonymised.
The students also bring in their own values when justifying their evaluations of the main characters, and they do so through a pattern that leads to the indirect positive appreciation of these values; for example, "thoughtfulness" and questioning one's own role in another's life, as in Key Text 2. This also means that their own subjective voices are discreetly present (see Kabel, 2016). It is noteworthy that the interpretations share an avoidance of overt subjectivity in its most visible form, as established through the use of a student's own emotional statements as a means of evaluating the short story.

Differences
The differences in the use of literary terms are manifest. In short, as exemplified by the two key texts, the terms used are either foregrounded or backgrounded. The student authors who wrote Key Text 1 foreground them by using them as hyperthemes that partly structured the text (such as "Location", as seen in the excerpt in Figure 1). They also use them in the questions raised by the host, and highlight some by putting them in boldface text or underlining them.
In contrast, the student authors who wrote Key Text 2 background the literary terms by using them primarily in elaborative subordinate clauses, as in "theme" in the following example: "Throughout the story, there are signs of parental failure, which by the way is also the short story's theme". In this way of elaborating, the student's own subjective interpretive statement is given prominence while at the same time an awareness of literary terms is signalled.
The differences are also manifest in relation to the degree of closing or opening a dialogic space. In Key Text 1, the student authors formulate interpretations primarily through monoglossic sentences (or use contractive resources). In addition, the student authors of Key Text 1 use the short story to support their interpretive statements, assigning it the role of a fact. In Key Text 2, the student authors use a range of different heteroglossic resources, including expansive resources. In doing so, they reveal a subjective grounding and the idea that the short story is open for discussion. This is particularly visible in the discussions of various possible interpretations, a feature allowed for in the task of writing a manuscript for a literary conversation. The short story is assigned the role of a constructed text that is open to interpretation. For example, in Key Text 2, the student authors justify their focus on the main characters and note their appreciation of both the characters and a formal feature-a shift in the point of view-of the short story: "It [the shift] is both so that you can see things from the outside and because Edward's feelings and condition are very important for the story, meaning you have to get the story from his inner perspective". In this way, they argue for an analytical focus on the protagonist and make explicit the notion that the short story is a constructionindirectly highlighting the fact that the evaluative stance in their written interpretation is co-created by, among other things, a shift in the point of view.
In sum, the two distinct patterns of meaning-making choices seen in Class North translate into a knowledge tendency (Key Text 1) and an elite tendency (Key Text 2). In Key Text 1, the student authors tone down the subjective commitment and grounding of their interpretive statements, formulate statements as facts, and position the short story as a kind of answer. Furthermore, they give prominence to literary terms, all of which lead to the identification of a knowledge tendency. In Key Text 2, the student authors also refer to and quote from the short story, albeit eroding its fact status through (among other things) the use of expanding resources and an explicit discussion of different interpretations. The literary terms are subordinated to straightforward subjective interpretive statements and, therefore, awarded a less prominent position. In this way, Key Text 2 combines meaningmaking resources that reflect both a knower and a knowledge tendency in an intricate way that may exemplify a means of balancing the different and challenging requirements of the interpretive writing task.

Class west: knower and elite a few steps apart
The interpretations written in Class West are short (around a half to one page each).
The key texts epitomise two variations which I consider to reflect a knower and an elite tendency. Yet the differences are not marked. The student texts share a number of common linguistic features, and the things that separate them relate primarily to the ways the student authors refer to and quote from the short story, and therefore to the degree they close down dialogistic alternatives in their written interpretations-all of which otherwise display features that would most profoundly indicate a knower tendency. However, the presence of and reflection upon literary terms in all the texts also supports steps towards a knowledge tendency. This connects to the writing task: the students were asked to suggest and justify the literary terms needed to answer their analytical and interpretive questions concerning the short story.

Key text 3-Elite (knower)
Key text 4-Knower The presence of, and reflection upon, literary terms-appreciated as a means of understanding formal features. Affect in the third person and judgement. Expansive language use underscoring subjectivity. More objective references to the short story.
The presence of, and reflection upon, literary terms-appreciated as a means of understanding the characters. Affect in the third person and judgement. Expansive language use underscoring subjectivity. The short story is barely referred to as support or a voice in itself.

Similarities
In all the written interpretations, the literary terms are listed and justified, albeit in slightly different ways which support the identification of variations in the meaningmaking patterns. All the students in this class open a dialogic space in their written interpretations through the use of expansive resources. The classroom context sheds light on the students' use of expansive resources: in the classroom, they were introduced to various words and phrases they could use when answering analytical and interpretive questions in an effort to create or limit the space for other interpretations.

Figure 2. Excerpts from the Key Texts (3 and 4) in Class West
Key text 3 Questions about the short story Introduce the theme/themes that you think is/are important to ask about in relation to the short story. Give reasons for why it is/they are important. I think the theme that it is important to discuss is "neglect". There are plenty of signs that the parents neglect the children. Even just the fact that the fridge is almost empty. There is also much to suggest that the parents are hungover and that they have a problematic relationship with alcohol [... ]. Which literary terms might you need to know when investigating the short story by way of your questions? Try to justify your answer. You can use the analytical concept of "point of view", as you must see it from the children's point of view if you are to understand the short story and the language of the short story better [... ].
Key text 4 Breakfast -I believe the theme is "responsibility", as I believe they allude to the parents almost never being home. They don't take any responsibility for the children, as they try to take responsibility for themselves [... ].
We have asked the first and second questions, since we find it appears very clearly and shows that the parents do not take responsibility for clearing away, cleaning, or cooking [... ].
-I think that you should know the point of view, the environment, the composition, since you will need the point of view to see how the children feel [... ].
Note: Translated from Danish (spelling mistakes in the original Danish script have not been retained in the translation).

Differences
The presence of and reflection upon literary terms typically involve a positive appreciation of the students' own analytical focus. However, there appears to be a line of demarcation between the students who are interested in understanding the formal features of the short story, such as the language, and students who are interested in understanding the main characters. The following two excerpts exemplify this subtle difference: "You can use the analytical concept of 'point of view', as you must see it from the children's point of view if you are to understand the short story and the language of the short story better" (Key Text 3), and "I think that you should know the point of view, the environment, the composition, since you will need the point of view to see how the children feel" (Key Text 4).
In addition to this divergence, there is a further and more marked divergence. In Key Text 3, the student author refers to and quotes from the short story in objective ways, whereas in Key Text 4 the student author refers to the short story in a more general way. In fact, this student barely refers to it as support or a voice in itself. The following example is from the first section of Key Text 3: "I think the theme that it's important to discuss is 'neglect'. There are plenty of signs that the parents neglect their children. Just the fact that the fridge is almost empty". This excerpt demonstrates a move away from expanding the dialogic space ("I think") and towards contracting the dialogic space by referring to the short story as a fact. In doing so, the student author strengthens their own argumentation and assigns a certain authoritative status to the short story. In contrast, see this example from Key Text 4: "We have asked the first and second questions, since we find it appears very clearly, and it shows that the parents do not take responsibility for clearing away, cleaning, or cooking". This more subjective reference to something that seems to appear quite clearly in the short story positions the student author as authoritative and the short story as open for alternative interpretations.
In sum, the students' choice of empathetic and judging language targeted on the main characters, as well as their use of expanding resources that reveal the subjective grounding of their interpretive statements, reflect a knower tendency. This tendency is even clearer in relation to Key Text 4, where the short story itself is assigned a less important or prominent position. Key Text 3 moves towards an elite tendency. This translation is reflected in the student authors' interest in literary terms as the target of their understanding and in their more objective ways of either referring to the short story or assigning it the status of fact, whereby the subjective contributions are slightly masked.

Class south: Either elite or knower
Of the sixteen student texts available from Class South, all exhibit the same structure: summary, analysis, and evaluation, with the analysis forming the most comprehensive part. The two key texts exemplify the differences in this class with regard to how the student authors refer to and quote from the short story in more objective or more subjective ways, the extent to which they position the short story as the reason for their analytical focus, and how explicitly they convey their own values in their written interpretations. These differences reflect a knower (elite) tendency (Key Text 5) and a distinctly subjective knower tendency (Key Text 6). Table 5. Overview of the characteristics of the meaning-making patterns in Class South.

Key text 5-Elite (knower)
Key text 6-Knower (very distinct) The presence of literary terms and an argument for analytical choice-appreciation of characterisation as an important analytical concept in itself. Affect in the first person and direct reactions (appreciation) concerning the short story. Affect in the third person and judgement. Expansive language use underscoring subjectivity. More objective references to the short story. References to other texts by the same author.
The presence of literary terms and an argument for analytical choice-appreciation of the characterisation as captivating. Expansive language use underscoring subjectivity. Affect in the first person and direct reactions (appreciation) concerning the short story, in addition to appreciation of own values. Affect in the third person and judgement. More subjective references to the short story. References to other texts by the same author.

Similarities
What stands out in all the written interpretations in Class South is an overt sense of subjectivity, fostered through the use of emotional language in the first person and the emotional lexis used to appreciate the short story. In Key Text 5, the student author delivers such an evaluation in the following way, including an appreciation of the formal aspects in the short story (see Figure 3): "This text makes you sit back completely confused about what the plot actually means. Despite this, I think that the text's language is eloquent, and the author Kim Fupz has used words that make you feel the mood of the protagonist's miserable life". In this evaluative excerpt, the student demonstrates a first-person emotional commitment through the use of wordings such as "feel the mood" and "completely confused". Moreover, the student expands the dialogic space through the use of "I think". Another notable element, aside from this sense of subjectivity, is the support offered for interpretive statements through examples taken from the short story and through references to other works by the same author. The short story was one of three works by the same author that the students read, so that the students had the opportunity to mention the author's other texts.

Figure 3. Excerpts from the Key Texts (7 and 8) in Class South
Key text 5 [... ] Analysis: In my analysis, I have chosen to immerse myself in the characterisation and the imagery that appears in the story, as well as in why the short story is called "The Miracle". This is because I think the characterisation is important in this short story, as the protagonist's mental processes are clearly evident in the text and these reflections show what kind of person he is. In addition, the imagery in the story helps to describe the person's attitudes, and these metaphors appear several times in the story. Finally, I also think that the title has a relevant meaning for the short story, and, therefore, I would like to immerse myself in it [... ].
Key text 6 [... ] Other authors I have read fail to capture me in terms of the characterisation. In contrast, Kim Fupz has written the characterisation in such a way that I find it interesting and captivating. In "The Miracle", the story is about a family man with severe depression. Although depression has become a fairly common disease, it is not quite normal, especially not when you go on to have suicidal thoughts. This is to say, the protagonist of the "The Miracle" has come so far. My position on this is that he should have sought help before he reached that point. I think he was trying to find the best possible solution to his problem. But, in my opinion, he tried to escape from the problem in entirely the wrong way. After reading both "The Mad" and "The Miracle", both of which are written by Kim Fupz, I have gained an insight into his way of writing [... ].
Note: Translated from Danish (spelling mistakes in the original Danish script have not been retained in the translation).

Differences
The two key texts differ in three important ways. First, they differ in terms of how the student authors support their interpretations, whether through more objective (Key Text 5) or more subjective (Key Text 6) ways of referring to the short story. Second, they differ in relation to how the student authors justify their analytical choices. In Key Text 5, the student author reflects upon their focus on the characterisation of the main characters and argued that characterisation is important: they appreciate this particular analytical concept. In Key Text 6, the student author chooses the same focus, in this case because the student finds the characterisation "captivating" (see Figure 3 above). In this way, Key Text 5 emphasises disciplinary procedures and important concepts, whereas Key Text 6 emphasises and values a subjective commitment. Third, the student author of Key Text 6 explicitly incorporates their own values and appreciates them in relation to a discussion of the protagonist, who tries to commit suicide. The student claims it was wrong to attempt suicide and that the protagonist should have sought help instead: "My position on this is that he should have sought help before he reached that point. I think he was trying to find the best possible solution to his problem. But, in my opinion, he tried to escape from the problem in entirely the wrong way". The use of resources for appreciation in this manner renders the subjectivity in this written interpretation even more distinct than already established in all the other written interpretations.
In sum, the written interpretations share linguistic features which reflect a knower tendency. However, Key Text 5 reflects an elite tendency that is established on the grounds of more objective ways of referring to the short story and emphasising the disciplinary procedures and analytical concepts. Key Text 6 very clearly reflects a knower tendency.

DISCUSSION OF WRITING AND KNOWING ACROSS THE THREE CLASSROOMS
In this section, I begin by comparing and discussing the written interpretations across all three classes, with focus on students' use of literary terms and construction of evaluative stances in order to characterise their way of writing such responses (RQ1). I then move on to consider the knowledge tendencies (RQ2) and the range of dissimilarity within each class as well as within the entire set of written interpretations.
Three key linguistic features can be identified which constitute the similarities between the students' way of writing interpretations across all three classrooms: (i) the presence of literary terms, (ii) a shared interest in the main characters, demonstrated through the interpersonal meaning-making resources used to show an empathetic understanding of feelings and to make moral and ethical judgements of human behaviour, and (iii) the use of contracting dialogic resources to bring in the short story as a voice in and of itself that supports the interpretations. In addition to this finding about similarities, another important finding about what characterises students' way of writing interpretations pertains to differences related to: (i) the use of literary terms syntactically and organisationally; (ii) the degree to which emotional language is used in the first person, highlighting overt subjectivity; (iii) the ways in which the students close or open a dialogic space through the use of either monoglossic and primarily contractive resources or expansive (heteroglossic) resources; and (iv) the ways in which they refer to and quote from the short story in either more objective or subjective ways.
The resources made available in the units of work, including the three teachers' explicit guidelines, point to the requirements of two of the three shared key linguistic features. Indeed, in two out of the three classes, literary terms were foregrounded through activities and made visible on posters or display boards. Moreover, in all three classes, the importance of making references to and using quotes from the short story was emphasised. These two apparently ritualised requisites within the students' written interpretations may therefore reflect a broader tendency within compulsory Danish L1 literature education to apply analytical approaches to interpretive tasks based on a text-oriented pedagogy (e.g., Rødnes, 2015;Sørensen, 2008). Despite the influence of reader-oriented pedagogies and the perceived value of more creative text formats or indirect forms of analysis (Krogh & Piekut, 2015), current educational trends involve an analytical and concept-driven orientation, particularly at the lower secondary level (e.g., Rørbech & Skyggebjerg, 2020). Through the students' meaning-making choices, it becomes clear how this orientation resonates in their written interpretations.
It can be seen that the students' interest in the main characters appears without being required or advised by the teachers. This points to a characterisation practice in lower secondary Danish L1 literature education. I suggest that there is a prevailing focus on the protagonists as human beings and that this focus in turn fosters the students' own positioning (Thompson, 2014). Such characterisation practice may be seen in light of a wider range of purposes associated with the reading of literature in school-as reflected, for example, in the formal national curriculum for compulsory Danish L1 at the lower secondary level (Ministry of Children and Education, 2019). Here, emphasis is placed on fictional works as being linked to identity-formation and the possibility of developing empathy as well as a deepened understanding of different perspectives and ways of seeing the world (Gourvennec et al., 2020). The sets of interpersonal meaning-making resources relevant to this interest are described in the present article as attitudinal resources for affect and judgement (Martin & White, 2005: Rothery & Stenglin, 2000.
Likewise, the difference detected in the examination contribute to the characterisation of lower secondary students' ways of writing interpretations. Here, the classroom contexts also shed light on some of these subtler meaning-making differences, each of which points to possible key meaning-making resources in the lower secondary Danish L1 literature classroom; however, these differences were less explicitly attended to in the three classrooms. In Class West, the students K. KABEL worked directly with both words and phrases, which, by using tools from the appraisal system, I categorise as expansive language use. Such language use was also manifest in all the assignments from this class. Moreover, the writing task in this unit of work also promoted a somewhat weaker connection through references to and quotes from the short story, as a certain reflexivity with regard to the students' own questions was required. Notwithstanding this, some students in Class West referred to the short story in highly objective ways, and so took steps towards creating texts that reflected an elite tendency.
Overall, based on the students' ways of writing, three knowledge tendencies or norms of what counts can be highlighted (Maton, 2014): a knowledge tendency, an elite tendency, and a knower tendency. These tendencies relate to the highlighted meaning-making patterns, in particular to the more subtle distinctions within the entire set of written interpretations. Two poles are exemplified in Key Text 1 from Class North and Key Text 6 from Class South, which respectively epitomise a knowledge tendency and a knower tendency. The latter text is more distinctly subjective than the other texts because the student author's own emotional responses were used to justify their analytical choices, while their own values were brought in directly during a discussion about the protagonist.
Notwithstanding that the specific writing tasks, resources, and guidelines provided in each unit of work elucidate some of the similarities and differences both within each class and across the classes, a question remains regarding how such range of divergence in the ways of writing and knowing in the three year 8 classrooms should be interpreted. The findings of this study suggest two mutually intertwined explanations.
The first concerns the ambiguity of the type of interpretive task used, a type of task that Macken-Horarik (2006) has identified as a "Janus construct". It seems that it is a challenging to balance the handling of literary terms and the analytical requirements with the equally required independence in relation to analytical choices, subjectively grounded contributions, and optional discussions concerning more than one interpretation. Although compulsory Danish L1 education seems in general to value student subjectivity with regard to, for example, written exams after year 9 (Troelsen, 2020), determining the appropriate level of subjectivity might prove to be a challenge specifically manifest in the lower secondary literature classroom (Berge et al., 2005), not least due to knowledge inviting requirements and practices, furthered by the current scientific discourse (Rørbech & Skyggebjerg, 2020). As discussed, even in neighbouring Sweden, a more experience-based and overly subjective approach seems to predominate (Johansson, 2015;Torell, 2002;Sjöstedt, 2013). This suggests national differences with regard to what is valued when students participate in open interpretive tasks-differences that are formed by current policies, pedagogies, and local practices, as discussed in section 3.1.
The second and related explanation concerns the transitional nature of the Danish L1 literature classroom at the lower secondary level. I suggest that the challenge may be even more pressing because a knowledge tendency, a knower tendency, and intricate combinations of the two may be both legitimised and valued at this transitional leveae. On the one hand, different ways of completing the same writing task, when performed within the same literature classroom and the same unit of work, may relate to students' different meaning-making repertoires when it comes to participating in text activities. As emphasised by Macken-Horarik (2020), people tend to react subjectively to works of fiction. Therefore, the distinct knower tendency reflected in Key Text 6 may relate to a non-disciplinary and out-of-school way of responding to such texts.
On the other hand, and this is the interpretation suggested in the present article, the range of divergence may most closely link to the experience-based approaches (Rødnes, 2015) which, arguably, currently dominate at the upper primary level (Rørbech & Skyggebjerg, 2020). As such, the presence of overt subjectivity, as epitomised in Key Text 6, may represent a transitory reminiscence that, while stilll present at lower secondary level, will transform during the final stage of compulsory schooling into a more subtle way of expressing subjectivity, as text-oriented comes to dominate at upper secondary (Krogh & Piekut, 2015;Sjöstedt, 2013). To put it more directly, the distinct meaning-making patterns identified in the present study may reflect the presence of both a knower and a knowledge tendency, as well as intricate combinations of the two tendencies, more generally in the literature classroom at the lower secondary level because of its transitional nature. Consequently, students may interpret the same task in different ways, as at lower secondary level more than one way of participating in text meaning counts. Thus, it becomes a pressing matter to reflect upon what counts in relation to each writing task in each literature classroom-not only for students, but also for teachers if they are to support students' access to and co-construction of valued ways of writing interpretations.

CONCLUDING REMARKS
Written interpretations represent one of the many text formats utilised in lower secondary Danish L1 education; however, like other forms of L1 writing during compulsory schooling, they have been investigated only rarely in Denmark. To increase our knowledge of students' ways of writing responses to literature in the lower secondary Danish L1 classroom-a level that is invaluable in terms of students' personal and educational trajectories-the present study therefore involved an indepth analysis of students' use of literary terms and construction of evaluative stances in key texts from three year 8 classes. Further to this, the meaning-making patterns detected in the key texts were translated into knowledge tendencies. The social semiotic approach to disciplinary writing adopted in the present study conceptualises students' writing as being related to their meaning-making repertories and their interpretations of the world and of what counts, in addition to the writing task and the values involved. This calls for future investigations into writing within the L1 literature classroom in addition to that conducted in this study, K. KABEL to account for example for contextual facets beyond the traces in the written products themselves. However, the findings of this study contribute to a greater understanding of meaning-making resources utilised in this form of response during the final stage of compulsory school in Denmark. Such resources reflect both analytical and experience-based approaches in a somewhat challenging and interwoven form. The approach adopted in the present study to identify and understand year 8 students' ways of writing interpretations allowed it to highlight both shared key linguistic features across all three Danish L1 literature classrooms and, likewise, subtle meaning-making distinctions in this form of writing. Moreover, it supplements the notions of analytical and experience-based approaches with the notions of knowledge and knower tendencies. In this way, the chosen linguistic and sociological lenses provide an opportunity for a nuanced mapping and discussion of students' different ways of writing interpretations, especially the different ways of balancing analytical requirements and own subjectivity in open interpretive tasks in the Danish L1 literature classroom. As such, the approach applied in this article contributes to the rather scanty research on writing in Denmark and extends the literature-pedagogical lenses used in the existing literature to describe interpretive tasks in L1 literature education. It thereby contributes new knowledge that may ultimately support teachers when they seek to support their students' successful educational participation and meaning-making possibilities when writing interpretations. The article's findings may also contribute to future comparative disciplinary writing studies conducted across national borders.