Teachers' talk on students' writing: Negotiating students' texts in ...

Teaching and Teacher Education 28 (2012) 599e608Contents lists available at SciVerse ScienceDirectTeaching and Teacher Educationjournal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/tateTeachers’ <strong>talk</strong> on students’ writing: Negotiating students’ texts in interdisciplinaryteacher teamsKristin Helstad * , Andreas Lund 1Department of Teacher Education and School Research, University of Oslo, P.O. Box 1099, Blindern, 0317 Oslo, NorwayarticleinfoabstractArticle history:Received 7 April 2011Received in revised form6 January 2012Accepted 9 January 2012Keywords:Teachers’ learningStudents’ writingIntersubjectivityInteraction analysisThis paper examines how a team of teachers in a Norwegian upper secondary school responds to,negotiates, and evaluates students’ writing in and across different disciplines. The purpose is to identifydiscourse strategies and professional development as the teachers discuss students’ texts, and to explorehow the teachers develop a shared understanding of how writing relates to students’ learning. Thefindings show how the teachers’ discourse reflects an emerging understanding of how writing is botha subject-specific and interdisciplinary skill conducive to learning, but also how institutional traditionsand discipline-specific concerns together allow for and constrain teachers’ learning.Ó 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.1. IntroductionThe study presented in this paper examines how a team ofexperienced Norwegian teachers in an upper secondary schoolresponds to, negotiates, and evaluates students’ texts in and acrossdifferent school subjects. The interdisciplinary team of teacherswas established in order to develop professional knowledge aboutwriting practices. The project, which is both a school developmentproject and a research project, ran for two years (2007e2009) inclose collaboration between the teachers, an expert on writing, andthe principal of the school. The rationale for the school project isfound in an increasing international interest in writing researchacross subjects (Bazerman, Little, Bethel, Chavkin, Fouquette, &Garufis, 2005) and how such research can benefit teacher development(Troia, Shankland, & Heintz, 2010). One local example is theNorwegian Knowledge Promotion Curriculum from 2006 (K06) inwhich writing is defined as one of five basic skills to be integrated inall disciplines. This curriculum reflects an international trendwhere writing is regarded as a strategy for domain-specific learningand communication (Newell, 2006).Developing professional learning about writing across thedisciplines is a complex endeavor because it involves teacherstraversing the boundaries between the specific school subjects theyteach. This represent a challenge because, as one language teacherin the Norwegian project put it in a response to a March 2009questionnaire, “we found that teachers placed emphasis on verydifferent things when they taught writing, and the studentsthought this was confusing.” 2 In order to help develop a sharedunderstanding of writing in and across disciplines, an expert onwriting was invited to engage with and assist the team. Thus, theinitiative came from the teachers, who recognized an opportunityfor engaging an expert to take part in and assist them in theirprofessional development. In this way, the project also gaineda research dimension, as the expert brought research colleaguesinto the project to study how teachers advanced their learningwhile working with students’ texts.The purpose of the research project that forms the basis of thisstudy was to identify teachers’ emerging knowledge of writing andtheir discourse strategies when negotiating their perceptions ofstudents’ texts, and to explore the ways teachers cooperated as theydeveloped a shared understanding of writing across schoolsubjects. Teachers’ learning was assumed, in turn, to increase theirrepertoire of instructional skills. The present paper examines howthe practitioners, with the support from the expert, explored anddeveloped their knowledge through <strong>talk</strong> in regular meetings wherestudents’ texts were discussed. In addition, we draw on interviews* Corresponding author. Tel.: þ47 22 85 40 66.E-mail addresses: kristin.helstad@ils.uio.no (K. Helstad), andreas.lund@intermedia.no (A. Lund).1 Tel.: þ47 22 85 50 68.2 Translated from Norwegian by the authors.0742-051X/$ e see front matter Ó 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.doi:10.1016/j.tate.2012.01.004

602K. Helstad, A. Lund / Teaching and Teacher Education 28 (2012) 599e608and, as such, as part of their agency in meaning-making efforts.Such agency is also closely connected to the coordination of diversecontributions from interlocutors.As intersubjectivity also involves disagreement, negotiationbecomes essential in order to achieve some common understandingacross different positions. In this sense, negotiations aresignificant resources for exploring and deepening interlocutors’collective and professional knowledge. In activity-theoreticalterms, such knowledge can be seen as the object of the negotiationactivity. This object is what gives direction to the negotiation,while at the same time it is shaped by the activities participantsengage in. In particular, negotiation is required when the object ofthe activity is unstable and resists attempts at control and standardization.Consequently, the object is always emerging butmanifests itself in different instantiations as the activity unfolds(Kaptelinin, 2005).However, intersubjectivity does not only emerge throughmicro-level interaction. When teachers <strong>talk</strong>, they enter the flowof communication in a stream that connects both history and thefuture (Mäkitalo & Säljö, 2002). From a sociocultural view, whatteachers say and how they say it is not just an in situ concern,but this also connects to traditions and norms in the professionalcultures teachers share. Hence, how teachers act and speakin a particular context is understood in the light of institutionaland subject-oriented traditions (Grossman & Stodolsky, 1995;Neumann, Parry, & Becher, 2002). Stable communicative practicesversus in situ <strong>talk</strong> are interpreted as a matter of trying to connect‘macro’ (social structures) with ‘micro’ (<strong>talk</strong>) or, alternatively, the‘historical’ with the ‘present’. For example, as the teachers in ourstudy engaged in interaction, they invoked aspects of the institutionalcontext by referring to long-established practices ofwhat writing involved in the different disciplines they taught.5. Research designThe research design of the present study rests partly onethnographic fieldwork from 13 meetings in the interdisciplinaryteam over a two year period (2007e2009) and partly on interactionanalyses of specific episodes in these meetings. The corpus dataconsists of observations in the form of field notes and audiorecordeddata from meetings, as well as six interviews withparticipants, logs written by four of the teachers during spring2009, responses to questionnaires, and document analyses (syllabiand policy documents). In this paper, the empirical analyses focusprimarily on moment-to-moment discourse in three selectedexcerpts from discussions in the teacher team. These excerptsare then examined in light of participants’ reflections in interviewsand logs.In our analysis of the audio-recorded data and interviews, wedraw on interaction analysis (IA) (Jordan & Henderson, 1995). In IA,a fundamental assumption is that knowledge emerges in interactionsamong members of a particular community, mediated by <strong>talk</strong>but also mediated by the artifacts they use. In this study, thestudents’ written texts are such artifacts. However, as Mäkitalo andSäljö (2002) pointed out, analysis of <strong>talk</strong> and use of artifacts mustalso include what participants invest in the activity, what theyassume, and what might be at stake. IA represents a multi-levelapproach to capturing learning and development. Although originallydeveloped with video recordings in mind, we have found IAuseful for audio-taped recordings as well, especially since IA allowsresearchers to capture the complexity and dynamics of humaninteraction.The selections from the corpus data analyzed in this paperqualify as dialogic episodes (Lund, 2004; Nystrand, 1997). Suchepisodes constitute the unit of analysis, i.e., the analytic focus thatserves to capture seminal moments as well as the temporality of<strong>talk</strong>. The choice of a suitable unit of analysis always impliesa balance between high detail and comprehensiveness, of being toonarrow to capture the whole corpus and too broad to captureimportant micro events. At both extremes, unit choice involvesreductionism. We seek a compromise on such concerns by choosingthe dialogic episode as our unit of analysis, because dialog literallymeans ‘through words’, and the dialogic episodes in this study areunderstood as a specific type of situated and relational socialpractice.Furthermore, what delimits the dialogic episode used in thepresent study is, on the one hand, dialogic features that signalnegotiation and emerging intersubjectivity, and, on the other hand,features that make the relationships between meaning-making onthe micro-level and institutional awareness and concerns visible.These two sets of features define and delimit this unit of analysis. Atthe same time, these features form the criteria for our selection ofepisodes. They have been selected as different instantiations of theobject under construction e understanding writing as learning(Kaptelinin, 2005). Consequently, such episodes are not merelyillustrations or examples of a phenomenon, but should be seen asempirical carriers of the analysis. They are not statistically generalizable,but they are arguably analytically generalizable. This isbecause the results generated from one episode, grounded inanalysis of similarities and differences, could guide or give input foranother situation.The selected episodes are collected from one meeting during thesecond year of the project in order to unpack in some detail whatwent on at a specific time. The episodes reflect participants’ variousdegrees of familiarity with different school subjects, institutionalaspects, approaches to resources (e.g., concepts and learners’ texts),and how such issues shape the perceptions and negotiations amongthe team members.While the dialogic episodes were selected in order to visualizenegotiations and emerging intersubjectivity, we also sought todocument the possible transformation of teachers’ professionalknowledge over time through selected excerpts from interviewsand teachers’ written reflections. These selections were made andcategorized based on their summarizing characteristics, i.e., whenparticipants take stock of the process, point to what they havelearned, persistent problems, or the influence of the expert overtime. Together, these excerpts are intended to illuminate theteachers’ subjective learning experiences. The situational documentationis juxtaposed with the more longitudinal documentationin order to capture the object as instantiations (episodes) andhow participants reflect upon it. These two documentation typesare mutually constitutive of the object, which is to understandwriting in and across disciplines as a specific type of studentlearning and to develop teachers’ professionalism through thisunderstanding.6. Episodes from a meeting in the writing teamThe meetings in the writing team usually consisted ofa discussion of students’ texts and a discussion of specific issuesrelated to writing in general, e.g., how to treat references andsources in texts, argumentation strategies, text structures, anddifferent types of genres in the subjects. One or two of the teachersalways brought students’ texts from their own classes to themeetings. In the following episodes, Cecilie (teacher) presentschemistry reports from her class. The students’ reports appear intwo versions: a draft that Cecilie has commented on and the final,revised versions from the students. The reports have been assessedby Cecilie and handed back to the students with grades andcomments.

604K. Helstad, A. Lund / Teaching and Teacher Education 28 (2012) 599e608same sequence, Cecilie uses this opportunity to strengthen herargument concerning process-oriented ways of working: “I thinkwe avoid some of it by working this way.” Then, she closes theepisode with a question, addressed to Tora, the chairperson:“Wasn’t today’s theme reflection logs?” (18). Cecilie seems impatientto present more of the students’ texts and their reflections ontheir writings, thus invoking her own expertise and appliedknowledge as a teacher of natural sciences and writing. Throughthe presentation of the students’ texts, she has gone ‘public’(Lieberman & Pointer Mace, 2009) by making transparent thefactual content she has taught, the writing processes she hasarranged, and the learning conditions she has established in theclassroom.When Cecilie requires a shift of topic in her last utterance, thisindicates that issues of copying and collaboration have not beenresolved, merely postponed. Her choice of words when referring tocopying as a “huge problem” (18) indicates that this issue willpersist. Episode 1 testifies to how difficult intersubjectivity is whenthe teachers are confronted with disputed practices, when thestakes are high, and their accountability is questioned. Throughthese team negotiations, tensions have become apparent. However,these are not necessarily detrimental to professional development,but, as Matusov (1996) reminded us, part of emerging intersubjectivityand meaning-making. In Episode 2 (Section 6.2), intersubjectivityemerges as more consensus-driven as the teacher teammoves from a discussion of plagiarism to examining how studentsuse multimodal elements.6.2. Episode 2: negotiating semiotic resources and digital issuesEpisode 2 is an immediate continuation of Episode 1, set off bya shift in topic as Ragnhild asks a question about semioticresources:19. Ragnhild: May I ask a question? In this case perhaps I missedan illustration. I’m thinking of the students who would haveproblems writing this, they may also have problems reading;an illustration might perhaps help and be easier to deal with.20. Tora: But you have actually said this in one of your comments,Cecilie?21. Cecilie: When students submit texts digitally, I see that theystruggle with handing in compound texts. It becomes difficultfor them to produce them, because they are simply not able todo it. They ask whether they can hand them in on single sheetsin addition, so that they can draw or scan.22. Edith: Scan, yes?23. Kirsten: Do they draw on the PC?24. Cecilie: They can use ‘Paint’, but it is terribly difficult and theillustrations are not good. The best solution for these studentswould be to have a digital camera at school, simply take photos.25. Edith: But we don’t . Student A has made good illustrations,hasn’t he?26. Cecilie: Student A is completely different from Student B.27. Edith: This text, that illustration, it looks as though it has beentaken from somewhere.28. Cecilie: Which text do you mean?29. Edith: Student A.30. Cecilie: That illustration, yes, it has been taken from theInternet, you see the sources have been included, because thisis difficult to achieve in any other way.31. Tora: Are you saying he has scanned them?32. Cecilie: No, I logged on and checked these sites and I wouldhave found them had I continued.33. Tora: But it is important that we actually learn how to do thesethings; we are not able to use all of this, are we?34. Cecilie: Machines know how to make such structured forms.They are good at it.35. Edith: What about this student, A? What has he done?36. Cecilie: He has visited a site and copied and pasted.37. Edith: Oh yes, that is very obvious...38. Cecilie: He has also stated where he has picked it up.39. Edith: And that’s very good.40. Cecilie: But perhaps a reference is missing?In this episode, the teachers’ <strong>talk</strong> focuses on the use of illustrationsin texts, i.e., semiotic resources, digital artifacts andsources, and the teachers’ assessment of such use. In Norway,digital literacy has recently become integrated into all the subjectsin the K06 curriculum, and Tora signals that she wants to knowmore about this (33). Ragnhild and Cecilie are close colleagueswho have worked as natural science teachers for many years at thisparticular school. Despite this fact, they are not used to commentingon each other’s assessments of students’ texts. In interviews,both teachers confirm that, while collaboration betweenteachers traditionally focuses on sharing academic experiencesand information more generally, assessing written texts is basicallyan individual practice.When Ragnhild comments on the lack of an illustration in thestudent’s text, she does so carefully, in a questioning manner, andjustifies her argument: “I’m thinking of the students who wouldhave problems writing this, they may also have problems reading”(19). Cecilie takes a different angle by arguing that it is difficult forthe students to submit compound texts digitally. She points outthat it is possible to use a digital program (‘Paint’), but that the bestsolution would be to have “a digital camera at school” (24). Thelatter is an issue Edith responds to quickly: “But we don’t” (25). Thisutterance can be understood as an institutional policy: schools donot give priority to such purchases. In the ensuing conversation, thecall for digital competence and how to cope with new challengesrepresented by digital, compound texts is on the agenda. The rest ofthe <strong>talk</strong> in this episode e between Cecilie, Tora, and Edith e sumsup the significant aspects of the use of sources in a digital context.Tora states that it is important that “we [the teachers] actually learnthese things” (33). As the local project leader and a former head ofthe department of foreign languages, she seems to be concernedabout how teachers’ digital competence might strengthen theirfuture professionalism. Also, her use of the pronoun we indicatesthat this is a collective concern for the teacher community. Thus,the issue also becomes an institutional concern.Throughout Episode 2, we can see how the participants respondto and reciprocally build on each other’s utterances (Bakhtin, 1986),including those articulated in the previous episode, while theydevelop insights into the production of digital, compound texts. Thetexts (from students A and B) serve as mediating artifacts in thisprocess. They are clearly at the center of the conversation. But whileEpisode 1 was driven by tension, Episode 2 shows how contributionsfrom the participants are complementary; different conditionsfor continued cooperation between the stakeholders areestablished. The question that now emerges is how to assess thelearners’ texts that have been brought into the team discourse.6.3. Episode 3: negotiating teacher commentsIn the third episode, the team is concerned about the assessmentof the texts and the relevance of teachers’ comments onstudents’ drafts. The selected episode mainly consists of a dialogbetween the expert, Frida, and the teacher, Cecilie, about one ofCecilie’s comments which requires that the student justify her/hisapproach in a chemistry report. The exchange starts with a directchallenge from Frida and focuses on the rationale for Cecilie’s

K. Helstad, A. Lund / Teaching and Teacher Education 28 (2012) 599e608 605comment and genre- and norm-related questions on subjectspecificwriting.41. Frida: Cecilie, if we take a look at your comments, isn’t it quitea difficult question when you ask why this was “very interestingto investigate”? (Pointing to Cecilie’s comment on thedraft: The introduction should introduce the reader to thetheme. What makes this very interesting to investigate?)42. Cecilie: That is a general comment I often use.43. Frida: But do you require that your students justify theirinvestigations?44. Cecilie: Well, I require that they frame it [the investigation] inthe introduction, but this is a difficult part of the report both forme and the students.45. Frida: But none of these reports has a reason beyond thesubject itself, besides that it is an important process inchemistry?46. Cecilie: It is not placed in a larger context, no. In this type ofstudent exercise, I may not expect them to do so, but I haveanother big project where the students have to frame theirreports differently.47. Frida: But then it is strange that you ask this question in yourcomment here, isn’t it?48. Ragnhild: I think that the student responds to it here (readsaloud from the theory section of the text). Don’t you think so?49. Liv: She could have put it in the introduction.50. Ragnhild: But the theory section belongs to the introduction tothe report, I think.51. Liv: Is introduction and theory really the same, as a unit, ina chemistry report?52. Ragnhild: Yes, in a way it is.53. Cecilie: But I agree, it’s very ambitious, the question in mycomment.54. Frida: But it gave us an opportunity for clarification here. Ididn’t know the importance of a justification in a report, didyou?55. Cecilie: And I didn’t know either!56. Ragnhild: No, did we really know?57. (laughter)58. Cecilie: But it is important that we know now.Like Episodes 1 and 2, Episode 3 also focuses on what can beexpected from students and how this places demands on theteachers. In this case, Frida is concerned about an ambitiousrequirement that the students justify their investigations inchemistry. She asks several questions about one specific commentfrom Cecilie. Cecilie justifies her work, arguing that this isa “general comment” (42), and, furthermore, that this is a “difficultpart of the report” (44). When Ragnhild points to a relevant passagein the learner’s text followed by an invitation to share her observation(48), the character of the <strong>talk</strong> changes. Frida has provokedthe teachers to reflect on the structure and nature of a chemistryreport. The focus on the particular student text is expanded toa more general discussion of the report as a genre in chemistry.Ragnhild, who is familiar with the genre in biology and chemistry,assists Liv as well as Frida in their confusion regarding what isexpected from a report in chemistry. Shortly before this, Ceciliereconsiders her level of ambition: “It’s very ambitious, the questionin my comment” (53). Frida sums up, stating that the negotiations“gave us an opportunity for clarification”, thus pointing to how theteam has expanded their intersubjective understanding: “I didn’tknow the importance of a justification in a report, did you?” (54).The responses that follow (55e58), as well as the laughter at theend of this episode, suggest that the questions raised by Frida andthe subject teachers have been resolved. The use of first-personplural underlines this process of intersubjectivity and transformedknowledge in the team: “But it is important that we knownow” (58).6.4. Episodes in contextEpisode 3 shows how a moment-to-moment micro-analysisgives an indication of how knowledge advancement emerges in theteacher team. As the episode took place, in October 2008, it wasabout midway through the project. Numerous analyses of similarepisodes from earlier and later meetings would make it possible totrace the professional development over the entire two years.However, in order to avoid expanding this paper unreasonably, weresort to teacher interviews and logs in order to achieve a morecondensed narrative of longitudinal development. As pointed outin Section 5, the guiding principle has been that of identifyingstatements that summarize various aspects of the participants’learning experiences. In the following, we seek to demonstrate howprofessional development emerged and was perceived by teamparticipants by concentrating on their encounters with differenttypes of texts and the role of the expert.6.4.1. Insight into different writing culturesIn an interview in October 2008, science teacher Cecilie reflectson her experience so far. Right from the start, she addresses the factthat she has been exposed to writing in several subjects, with theresult that she acknowledges that writing differs from discipline todiscipline. Through the entire interview, expressions such as “newinput,”“opportunities to do things in new ways,” and “professionaldevelopment” are contrasted with expressions such as “be stuck”and “a field where I remained at level zero.” In a somewhat elaboratedpassage, Cecilie states:I guess I have become more aware of something more than justfacts in the texts. and I have seen how they [students] write inother disciplines, and that is quite an awakening!. I havelearned a lot, especially from colleagues in related disciplines.It’s interesting to see students’ texts that you basically have norelationship with, but that can teach you more about writing inyour own subjects. It is instructive to hear other teachers’comments about ‘your’ texts.These sentiments reverberate in the reflections of Kirsten, one ofthe language teachers, in a log file from March, 2009:The writing project provides me with the opportunity to stopand think about what I should be doing when my teaching isfocused on writing and why I do it. In addition, I think it’sinteresting to have contact with professionals who work withwriting in various ways outside our school, in the universitycontext. It gives me new ideas for my teaching. I like discussingtexts with my colleagues, especially with teachers who teachother subjects. It’s good to be able to reflect on my understandingof practice, and <strong>talk</strong> about academic issues that are notonly related to a specific syllabus.Similar reflections from the other team teachers indicate that itis the interdisciplinary nature of the team and the juxtaposition ofvarious perspectives that bring about new insights. For example,Liv, the teacher of Norwegian, concludes that, “I believe that thedifferent nature of the disciplines forces one to argue in differentways from discipline to discipline. I experienced some kind ofrevelation when we discussed this in the team.” Taken together, theabove and similar passages in the data indicate that intersubjectivityas well as new insights has emerged in the interdisciplinaryteam.

606K. Helstad, A. Lund / Teaching and Teacher Education 28 (2012) 599e6086.4.2. The role of the expertIn Episode 3, we saw how the university expert on writing, Frida,mediated the team’s understanding of justification in a chemistryreport, resulting in a collective acknowledgment of this insight. Inan interview in March 2009, the project coordinator, Tora, elaborateson the role and influence of the expert:. She [Frida] points her finger to “what do we basically need?Why is this better?”. She asks the right questions and opensour eyes. She emphasizes that the students need prototypes.They need some kind of model. Sometimes we ask her to givea lecture, to wind us up a bit, not just be pragmatic. And shehas shown us research from diverse fields; we think that is veryexciting.Frida was interviewed in March 2009, and she alsodescribed her contributions to the process. She especially pointedto writing strategies, the value of constructive feedback, thepotential of peer assessment among students, and a researchperspective as important elements conducive to the team’sincreased professionalism.Regarding the expert as more knowledgeable about writingissues than the teachers, Frida states that she herself “has learnta lot” from the practitioners through their shared insights overtime. Hence, it seems that mutual learning emerges from interactionbetween agents with diverse levels of expertise as theyelaborate reciprocally on issues of writing. In a study of a group ofuniversity professors and secondary school teachers discussingdevelopment in research and their impact on school curriculum(Brandes & Seixas, 1998), the professors brought their expertise totheir meetings, while the teachers brought their varied disciplinaryand pedagogical knowledge. Even though there werebridges to cross within their conversations, the participantsperceived their goal as making ‘translations’ and ‘transformations’between university and school. However, the study demonstratedthe importance of exposing the key structures and arguments ofthe disciplines as a first step in building bridges across thecommunities. As is the case in the present study, diverse expertiseadds up to the participants’ shared experiences in the communityof learners.7. DiscussionIn our research questions, we asked how students’ texts wereperceived, negotiated, and evaluated by an interdisciplinary teamof teachers and what the implications for teachers’ professionaldevelopment were. Our analysis of moment-to-momentdiscourse in three episodes from one meeting has shown thatthe teachers perceive student text qualities as well as possibletext problems in different ways, and that this may relate tosubject-specific genres and traditions. In these episodes, we sawhow the participants drew on the examined texts, the localpractices, and larger institutional contexts and subject cultures(Lund, 2008; Grossman & Stodolsky, 1995; Neumann et al., 2002),and how the expert sought to link the particular to the general.The three episodes reveal different types of negotiations esometimes fueled by contrary positions, sometimes by complementarycontributions, and sometimes by the need for clarification.The analysis shows that different types of negotiation exist in theinteractions, but that all types are conducive to developing intersubjectivityregarding challenges posed by writing in and acrosssubjects: the role of peer collaboration, the use of digital technologiesand potential plagiarism, multimodal representations, andsubject-specific genre conventions.In Vescio et al.’s (2008) review on the advantages of teacherlearning communities, one of the key findings was connected tothe importance of teachers’ collaboration on student work andstudent learning. Likewise, Little et al. (2003) showed that bringingteachers together to focus on student work affords learningopportunities. In our case, we saw that when teachers discussstudent texts, these discussions have the potential to enrichteachers’ opportunity to learn. In an interview with the principal(spring 2009) she links such discussions to a dialogic view oflearning and professional development:Because learning, I believe, happens between people and ithappens between teacher and student and it happens betweenmyself and my colleagues and you and me. So, obviously, if I didnot learn more this way I would not be able to contribute. So, if Ilearn more, so do the ones around me.In interviews with Cecilie and Ragnhild, similar views arevoiced, while they also point to the importance of integrating theirincreased insights into their own practices. This will happen, theysay, because they also see the beneficial consequences for subjectspecificlearning and instruction.However, what happens in a project may not necessarily turninto sustainable practices. While the episodes and the interviewsreveal the importance of intersubjectivity and turning newinsights into educational practices, this is no guarantee fortransformation and development on an institutional level. AsCecilie bluntly puts it: “We will never be able to involve all theteachers in developmental work”. According to Cecilie, someteachers will always remain unwilling to engage in the extraeffort that is needed. The principal also acknowledges this viewbut also points to sustained impact in certain departments such asthe one for science teachers. The key to sustainability, she says, isfound in a combination of good leadership, structured approachesand strategies, and cultivating productive relationships with thestaff.Little (2003) claims that if we are to understand more deeplywhat distinguishes particularly robust professional communities,we have to understand the interplay of the conventional and thecreative in teachers’ work. The conventional can be found in theinstitutional aspects of education, its dependence on stability andpredictability, while creativity is increasingly needed as practiceschange more rapidly. Thus, teacher interactions may both allowfor and constrain opportunities for learning: “Even within groupsthat would reasonably be considered collaborative and innovativeand committed to improving practice, teacher learning seemsboth enabled and constrained by the ways that the teachers goabout their work” (Little, 2003, p.939).Teachers can become carriers of these conflicting approaches,an issue we can trace in the discussions and tensions demonstratedin Episode 1. Traditionally, student writing in school is anindividual endeavor. Consequently, we see how issues such as peercollaboration and possible plagiarism emerge as touchy andpotentially conflictive for the teachers.A radical and possibly creative approach to such issues wouldbe to re-think tasks and assignments so that they might integratecopying for specific and productive purposes (Lund & Rasmussen,2008). In Episode 1, Edith’s concern about plagiarism and missingreferences in a student’s text comes across as tensions betweencultural reproduction and radical practices that challenge persistentwriting conventions. Whether such tensions enable orconstrain opportunities for expanding knowledge is not evidentfrom the data. Still, the data reveal that the team representsa dialogic resource for professional development and that subjectcultures as well as institutional aspects impact interdisciplinarityand emergent intersubjectivity. We would argue that these areimportant concerns when engaging teachers in heterogeneousgroups for professional development.

K. Helstad, A. Lund / Teaching and Teacher Education 28 (2012) 599e608 6078. ConclusionThis paper has shown how teachers of different subjects in anupper secondary school address the special disciplinary demandsof writing in and across different subject areas, and how the largercontext of their profession influences the way they go about theirlocal meaning-making efforts, such as in Episode 3.Furthermore, we have explored teachers’ <strong>talk</strong> as they respond tosome important issues raised by students’ writing in and acrossschool subjects. Their professional practice was analyzed as itdeveloped within a specific work setting and was linked to specificsubject cultures and institutional traditions.The episodes examined in the teacher community reveal diversetypes of negotiation, and these types seem to promote intersubjectivityand a deeper understanding of what writing entails.However, we need to burrow deeper into the teachers’ work andexamine the traditions, norms, and beliefs that exist inside thedifferent subject cultures in order to better understand howteachers cope with interdisciplinary challenges. Further diachronicanalysis is required to reveal more of the knowledge teachers drawupon, including expert knowledge offered from outside theteachers’ learning community.There are implications for practice in the sense that, in order tosupport teachers’ professional development, we need to acknowledgecontextual resources (human, conceptual, and material) andinstitutional traditions when we design support for teacherlearning and development. In our study, we saw how the collaborativeteam processes of negotiations and emerging intersubjectivityproved to be conducive to teachers’ meaning-making. AsEngestrøm (2008, p. 230) argued, “Successful negotiations tend totransform the dispute, not just reach an instrumental end”.Wehavesought to demonstrate that such transformation involves thecultivation of teachers’ professional learning through the design ofopportunities for interdisciplinary exchange as well as through theengagement of experts who can mediate and support suchprocesses.AcknowledgmentsWe would like to thank the anonymous reviewers and the editorfor valuable comments and suggestions to prior versions of thispaper. We would also like to thank our colleagues Eli Ottesen,Anniken Furberg and Sten Ludvigsen for their productive inputduring the writing of this paper.ReferencesÅberg, K., & Kroksmark, T. (2007). Handledning i pedagogisk arbete. [Guidelines forpedagogic work]. Lund: Studentlitteratur.Achinstein, B. (2002). Conflict amid community: the micropolitics of teachercollaboration. Teachers College Record, 104(3), 421e455.Bakhtin, M. M. (1986). 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