This study investigates how six writing-instructions aimed at third-year students in upper secondary school, resulting in high student performance, are designed. The aim was to identify common patterns of speech acts and text activities in the writing-instructions and to examine how clearly these communicate what is expected of students. To address this, a qualitative analysis of the six writing-instructions was conducted using tools from systemic-functional grammar: speech act and the concept of text activity. The analysis results show that the writinginstructions primarily communicate through the speech acts of statement and command. The speech act statement is used to provide information about the requirements and expectations of the task, while the speech act command structures the instructional part. The congruent use of speech acts demonstrates that all writing-instructions clearly convey their message. The framing text activity of explanation is used in all writing-instructions, providing a clear guidance, and writing frameworks, and is clarified and reinforced by the embedded text activity of description. The study results suggest that writing-instructions that clearly communicate expected content, structure, and writing frameworks correlate with higher student performance. Further research could expand this study with either a larger sample or in combination with an interview study.

By combining qualitative and quantitative methods, this study investigates which writing tasks Swedish as a second language teachers use in their teaching of the different school-related text types, how they justify their choices and adaptations of the writing task, and whether any connections can be seen to the national tests in Swedish as a second language writing tasks. The material used is survey responses and previous national tests whose results are then analysed through theories, such as genre pedagogy and Ivanic writing discourses to answer these questions. Previous research shows how factors such as writing task design and real readers can contribute to writing development in students. Previous research also shows how to work with text types in a language development way and how writing instruction is influenced by teachers' writing discourses. This paper shows from the survey responses that a trend among writing tasks in the different text types can be seen and how 8 out of 10 can be linked to previous national tests in Swedish as a second language. The results show that the teachers' reasons for their choice of writing tasks could be linked to previous national tests, to their suitability in writing the text type and the teacher's writing discourse. The teachers' adaptations of the writing tasks have been more about their way of working than the design of the writing task, but adaptations such as simplified language and adapted language have been mentioned. These results are important because they indicate how established genre pedagogy and its circular model have become in Swedish as a second language teaching and how much influence the national test in Swedish as a second language has on the teachers' choice of writing tasks in the different text types.