ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses how the author, as a former instructor of an ESL section of first-year composition (FYC) at a private university in Hawaii, exercised agency through action research designed to introduce curricular change to a semester-long composition course. FYC programs are common in U.S. colleges and universities, with most institutions requiring at least one, and sometimes two, composition courses in a student's first year of study. The composition theories and associated pedagogical approaches built on those theories will vary from program to program.
