This dissertation is a qualitative study of a curriculum I designed for composition students in the Fall of 2012. The curriculum I created is informed by the Freirean edict that a self-generated desire to "create knowledge" is far more likely to result in meaningful, holistic learning than simply "banking" information. In the first half of the semester, I instructed students in writing memoir, demonstrating strategies and literary devices of creative nonfiction. In the balance of the semester, I guided students as they analyzed their personal narratives, searching for ways in which institutionalized systems of power were woven through their texts. Students then interrogated those systems of power through individualized research projects. During the semester, I took in-depth, "thick" notes after every session. I also collected student writing and metacognitive texts. In the following semester I conducted interviews with consenting students, adding their observations to my body of data in order to triangulate their versions of the semester with mine Through my analysis, I demonstrate community college students' evolving critical awareness of the institutional forces that push and pull them in any number of directions. Concurrently, I illustrate the necessity of student autonomy and ownership in writing instruction and show the ways students need to feel supported by their instructor as they navigate the writing process. In my autoethnography, I also tell the story of how I unwittingly stumbled into my second career as a writing instructor and the critical awareness I have cultivated in the eleven years since. [The dissertation citations contained here are published with the permission of ProQuest LLC. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Copies of dissertations may be obtained by Telephone (800) 1-800-521-0600. Web page: http://bibliotheek.ehb.be:2222/en-US/products/dissertations/individuals.shtml.]