From Pages to Practice: 10 Years of Teaching Literature in English Classrooms in Norwegian Lower Secondary School

ABSTRACT Having opportunities to work with literary texts in language teaching is crucial to promoting students' language development, general education, and personal growth. Despite the recognized importance of reading literary texts in research and in policy, to date, little is known about the frequency and characteristics of literature instruction in the teaching of English as a second, foreign, or additional language. To illuminate classroom practices, this large‐scale, longitudinal, video‐observation study of naturally occurring English instruction in Norway examines to what extent students read literature in the classroom, what kinds of literary texts are read, and what opportunities teachers create for students to explore those texts across 200 lessons. The study involves lower secondary English teaching in 43 classrooms during the past decade (2015–2024) and integrates a quantitative mapping of the presence and forms of the literature read with a qualitative analysis of the literature lessons using an observation protocol for exploration in teaching. The results indicate that literary texts were often included in English teaching and that their presence was consistent over time. However, there may be a need to support teachers in implementing in‐depth explorations of literary texts that can foster students' engaged, reflective, and multilayered literary reading and response.