This article reports consequences for student writing quality based on a long-term professional learning project. Project teachers, representing all school subjects in grades 3-7, were presented with a writing construct, 'Wheel of Writing', and norms of expectation for writing proficiency. Participating teachers used the writing construct and norms as a basis for writing instruction and writing assessment. The project was conducted in 24 schools across Norway. 3088 students from 20 project schools participated. 233 students from 4 schools were used as a comparison group. The investigation showed that students in primary school improved their writing quality significantly. Students in lower secondary school did not. However, there was substantial variation in writing quality effects between schools, classes, and individual students. For instance at a number of schools, project students from lower secondary school improved their writing quality significantly. The article discusses potential explanations of the effects.

The Berge et al. article in this volume presents the functional construct of writing that underlies summative and formative assessment of writing as a key competency in Norway. A functional construct implies that specific acts of writing and their purposes constrain what is a relevant selection among the semiotic resources that writing generally affords.In this article, we present the specific criteria that are currently being introduced in Norwegian teaching and assessment of writing, as well as selected aspects of their development. The article builds on an assumption that assessment criteria have such educational importance that even their origins, intellectual trajectories and underpinnings should be given attention in educational research. In this context, the article presents elements of a rare approach, in that national ‘norms of expected proficiency’ at politically predefined educational grade levels have been grounded in sustained collaboration with experienced teachers of writing across the curriculum, and may thus be viewed as yet unofficial ‘standards’.In the first step, a combination of existing curricula and literature review of writer development was used to tentatively draft a first set of criteria for the grades included in a 2005 national test of writing (grades 4, 7, 10 and 11). In the second step, such criteria were developed through an iterative, long‐term process where initial criteria were confronted with the judgements of experienced teachers. Through ‘think aloud’ assessment interviews, pairs of teachers across Norway were asked to assess specific cases of students’ writings and voice criteria for their judgements, both within and across a series of domains.In the third step, interview transcripts were used to search for criteria used by several pairs of locally situated teachers across geographically distributed schools. Criteria thus identified were pooled into a refined set of ‘national standards’ that were subsequently tested out in everyday classroom contexts. On the basis of this confrontation with educational reality, the set has been further refined to form the version presented in this article.The Norwegian case raises a range of issues related to curriculum development, ‘standards’ and educational sustainability.

This article reports on a study of writing and assessment in upper primary school, focusing on how teachers develop assessment competence through professional discussions in interdisciplinary groups. The empirical data consist of dialogues between teachers assessing and giving feedback on students' texts from different subjects. To support their evaluations, the teachers used and referred to a defined construct of writing and norms for expected writing proficiency. The analyses reveal a complex picture of the teachers' use of the assessment resources and their processes of appropriating a broader understanding of writing, including acquiring an extended meta-language. Three thematic categories are crystallised: an instrumental approach and a flexible and functional approach, appearing as two ideal typical points on a continuum, linked together by an overarching category labelled learning in progress. The article argues for an analytical reading as a basis for formative assessment in general writing education, and points to the need for knowledge on writing, text and linguistics -traditionally seen as domains for L1 teachers. The findings are discussed in light of the L1 teachers' responsibility for both the specific subject discourses of literacy and Bildung, and for providing students with general knowledge on language and text to support their overall writing competence. Critical implications of this double responsibility for the L1 subject are presented and reflected upon.

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There is a great need for more knowledge on the relationships between the linguistic and conversational activities of pupils and their academic and personal growth processes. This kind of insight is particularly important when we bear in mind that exploratory activities are an important way of working in schools today. Looking for new insight, children will always enter into various types of dialogic interaction. For children, play is an important element here, as is also talk -and thinking together (cf. Mercer, 2000). Most curricula in Western countries emphasize that schools should offer environments where all pupils face challenges that are adapted to their aptitudes and backgrounds, that they enjoy going to school, are academically stimulated, and feel appreciated and socially included. The aim of our research is to find out whether and to what extent language may function as a tool for attaining these objectives. In this study we use examples from a Norwegian classroom. 1