Teaching in higher education encompasses more than merely helping students develop knowledge and skills. It entails engaging students in their own formation as persons, professionals and citizens. From this perspective, this article investigates how approaches to teaching academic writing contribute to formation. By analysing a case from initial teacher education in Norway, we identify and examine one teacher educator's beliefs about writing and his approaches to teaching writing. Theoretical framework rests on six discourses of writing developed by Roz Ivanic and on the formative possibilities and constraints embedded in these different literacy discourses. Thus, we provide students' experiences with this teacher's approaches and discuss what formation his approaches seem to have initiated. The findings point to the need for more critical reflection on the formative impact of teaching approaches in higher education more generally.