Let ψ and φ be analytic functions on the open unit disk $𝔻$ with φ($𝔻$) ⊆ $𝔻$. We give new characterizations of the bounded and compact weighted composition operators W ψ,ϕ from the Hardy spaces H p, 1 ≤ p ≤ ∞, the Bloch space B, the weighted Bergman spaces A αp, α > − 1,1 ≤ p < ∞, and the Dirichlet space $𝒟$ to the Bloch space in terms of boundedness (respectively, convergence to 0) of the Bloch norms of W ψ,ϕ f for suitable collections of functions f in the respective spaces. We also obtain characterizations...