This paper is organized around a goal-complication-resolution framework of questions: What do people want from higher education?; How could people achieve what they want?; What is stopping them?; and What can they do about it? The paper's context is writing in the disciplines, rather than composition specifically or academic writing in general. The paper begins with three propositions: (1) Every academic discipline wants committed, engaged students who produce interesting and academically credible texts; (2) The purpose of academic writing is not merely to reproduce what others have said, but for even the beginning student to find something new or at least additional to say; and (3) This contributory ability will also be helpful in later, non-academic contexts within contemporary socio-economic conditions. The paper states that, for composition teachers, this disciplinary focus is relevant in that they need to be encouraging the disciplines to take more responsibility for student writing. It cites a number of obstacles which prevent a field or conversational approach from being comprehensively applied, including lack of explicit instruction in the writing conventions of the discipline (encouraging continued use of classroom genres), and prior or existing knowledge is not explicitly engaged. According to the paper, in the absence of a disciplinary field, practice is overly dominated by a "field of assessment" in which the practice of the new entrant tends to be marked by caution and conservatism. Three ways of counteracting the entrenched problems are suggested in the paper: centering historical topics or issues in relevant contemporary debates; explicit disciplinary instruction in academic writing; and tasks which express a disciplinary field context and invite a dialogic/persuasive response. Contains 3 references. Attached are "summary points." (NKA)