Editor’s Introduction

As any composition instructor will tell you, a lot of time and energy goes into creating writing assignments that can help students develop the knowledge and practices they’ll need to succeed as writers and communicators in a variety of contexts. But an assignment is only as good as what students make of it. As Lauren Brown writes in her contribution to this issue, “There is magic to drawing in the audience, outlining your exigence, and accomplishing your purpose.” So, how can assigned writing become a space for student writers to feel empowered to perform such magic?

To learn about students’ perceptions of assigned writing, three writing researchers—Michelle Eodice, Anne Ellen Geller, and Neal Lerner—launched the Meaningful Writing Project. Surveying graduating seniors at three universities, the research team gathered students’ impressions of the writing assignments they felt were most impactful. The study found that most students appreciate writing assignments that offer them an opportunity to write something that is new, related to their future professions, connected to their personal lives beyond school, and open enough to allow them to make choices about what and/or how they would compose a text.

The student writers included in this issue of Undercurrents seem to echo these findings, marking their sense that assigned writing, even for a required general education first-year course, can be meaningful. This sense of connection to their work is marked in their reflective introductions, in which the writers comment on how the assignments that prompted their work gave them opportunities to engage with their out-of-school lives, extend their disciplinary interests, and make choices in their composing processes. These writers’ sense of engagement is obvious in the texts published here, as well. Whether it’s following curiosity about the communication methods of trees, dropping an f-bomb in an academic paper, or composing with video (a first for Undercurrents), these student writers have made the meaning-making process…meaningful.

For Reese Smith and Yelena Hernandez Bonilla, composition courses provided an opportunity to reflect on the environments in which their current and future work take place. Both consider how they might actively shape work environments to manage their emotional and psychological well-being, whether that means listening to classical music or surrounding a workspace with greenery.

Conversely, Brian Coughlin, Lauren Brown, and Anh Tran each take a swing at common disruptors of meaningful writing. In all three cases, familiar devices intended to assist student writers, including mnemonics meant to help developing writers to structure a paragraph or an essay, generalized rules about passive and active voice, and the alluring presence of large language model AI tools, can remove writerly “magic.” Their critical stances encourage future composition students to break away from easy formulas and assistive tools and to take a more active, authoritative role in composing.

Finally, Allison Peguero, Mandy May, and Bella Brown use their voices to consider the ways that textual representations shape perceptions. In some instances, these representations create negative and harmful effects: social media echo chambers create constraints for women, and films circulate harmful stereotypes and misconceptions about mental illness. In other instances, representation can be a boon, as the humanizing of trees (even if a little scientifically dubious) can increase human interest in the natural world and raise awareness of the ripple effects that one seemingly small action can have.

The Undercurrents editorial team and the instructors who submitted nominations are, of course, deeply impressed and proud of the work these writers have accomplished. We hope that the work included in this issue will inspire future writers to make meaningful magic of their own.