Making Writing Matter: Composition in the Engaged University

In Making Writing Matter, Ann M. Feldman explores how changing scholarship at engaged metropolitan universities offers an opportunity to redesign first-year writing classes in ways that make students better writers. An engaged university commits to a relationship with its surrounding metropolitan area, with faculty members undertaking collaborative research with community partners. The more vibrant, participatory role of an engaged university allows students to link their academic studies to important public issues and gain real-world writing experience, such as writing press releases and letters to organizations. This newly focused and contextualized research and scholarship at engaged universities shows students how discourse and writing matter in new ways.