Becoming a successful writer is an important skill for the young because it predicts academic success, supports and extends learning, provides opportunities to participate in civic and community life and fulfils expectations of the workforce to create clear and concise documents. Many secondary students in the US, however, struggle to gain basic academic literacy skills that meet the demands of higher education and the workforce. This qualitative study explored how a specific writing genre, occasional papers, opened opportunities for students to situate themselves and each other as authors in an 11th-grade English classroom. The paper argues that high school students need more opportunities to construct their identities as lifelong authors, who write to make sense of themselves and the world around them and write to promote dialogue with an audience if they are to succeed at high-stakes exams and writing as a member of the workforce. Suggestions for how to integrate such writing within a standardized curriculum are discussed.