Taking risks and developing agency: When first-year composition students write for authentic audience

First-year composition courses are typically taught in ways that limit student agency by confining student writing to the classroom, an act which denies students the opportunity to self-identify as writers. This study indicates that one of the fundamental elements that is denied students that may help them to identify as writers is an authentic audience, which is defined here as a readership beyond the instructor who is invested in the text for reasons other than evaluation. In response to the current FYC climate, the purpose of this qualitative research study was threefold: • to understand how authentic audiences affect FYC participants' abilities to self-identify as writers, • to understand if and how participants have grown or changed over the course of one semester given the element of authentic audiences, • and to use these understandings to improve composition pedagogy. To meet these goals, this study drew upon the philosophical underpinnings of critical realism and relied on qualitative action research as the basis for the methodology. In addition, role theory was used as an interpretive, theoretical lens through which to better understand what happened to participants' perceptions of themselves as writers over the course of a semester in which they were invited to write for authentic audiences.;The primary findings of the study were threefold. The first was that when invited to co-design a writing project intended for an authentic audience, the majority of participants (72%) designed medium- to high-risk projects of their own accord. The second finding was that the combined elements of authentic audiences and autonomy led participants to develop a sense of agency as learners and writers. And the third finding was that when they co-designed the curriculum and engaged in public discourse with authentic audiences, the majority of participants (77%) self-identified as writers at the end of the semester. This research calls educators to further consider the roles of authentic learning experiences and autonomy within educational settings.