This paper reports from one part of a study of upper-secondary mathematics classrooms in Sweden. The paper seeks to identify and analyse the communication strategies used by students in a small mathematics class in order to analyse the impact of these strategies on the perceived mathematical ability of the students. Individual work on textbook exercises constitutes a large part of Swedish upper-secondary mathematics education. During such work, the teacher is available to students as a resource to use in their work. In this part of the study, the focus is on how students during such individual textbook-work make use of the available resources. The communication strategies are therefore also discussed from the point of view of how the students make use of the teacher.