Writing and Transformation in College Composition

This study is based on interviews of twelve participants who had been students in various sections of College Writing taught by the researcher. This study focuses on participant descriptions of the writing they did in the class and its transformative impact on them. Based on the literature that claims that writing can transform and heal writers, this study seeks to understand how university students make sense of the ways in which writing makes personal and social change possible. This study suggests that for these students writing is a sociocultural practice deeply imbedded in their sense of self and their constructs of knowledge and power. This study also suggests that writing in a classroom that creates the space for students to connect their subjective experience and knowledge with academic literacy practices is transformative. This study argues feminist poststructuralist discourse can offer teachers and students subject positions of resistance and agency so students may enter academic discourse communities as speaking subjects and teachers may work toward a more transformative educational practice.