This is not your father’s essay. Not your mother’s, I tell my students. Not your typical English 101, five-paragraph essay. With this “Faces in the Crowd,” assignment, students profile an interesting, important figure in their own community. We use our writing to open up a greater discussion of social and political import. With first-hand research of an uncle’s minimum-wage job experience in the fields, for example, a student can better address the issue of worker rights. An interview with a former teacher can lead nicely into an insightful paper about educational reform. Here is our goal: to provide our own commentary, questions, interpretations, clarifications or even feelings of what we have read and heard. In other words, we take possession of our source and establishing our presence in our papers. The writing here reflects the diversity of student interest and concern regarding important issues in our community.