The Impact of Critical Community-Engaged Writing on Student Understanding of Audience

In this study, we examine the use of community-engaged writing pedagogy and the authentic, contextualized writing projects it creates to determine if students better understand the concept of audience and incorporate that foundational knowledge into their writing process. Thematic analysis of student reflections and interviews found students view academic writing as a test of skills, but view community-engaged writing as a product with a purpose in the world. We also learned students need to understand the position of their writing within a rhetorical situation to successfully incorporate the concept of audience into their writing processes. Finally, students revealed they focus most on audience during the revision process and that community-engaged writing provides students with the incentive and rhetorical situation necessary to develop a more impactful revision process. These findings will help composition instructors identify academic results in community-engaged pedagogy, while the process orientation of the study provides a better understanding of how students incorporate the concept of audience into their writing with implications beyond community-engaged writing courses.