This presentation reviewed conversations and results from a curriculum-revision task force charged with re-imagining how discourse communities can feature in our first-year writing courses. The task force positioned discourse communities as the centerpiece of the class, but with multiple small assignments, rather than a single high-stakes writing task. I show how discourse communities can be presented in manageable segments to help students acquire a social view of writing. Presented material includes sample assignment sheets, an explanation of our assessment strategy, and critical reflection from a teacher who piloted this approach. I presented this talk at the Classroom Matters: Pedagogy in Practice and Philosophy conference at the University of Florida, February 2013. Text similar to the content presented with these slides can be found at this blog post: http://bit.ly/VDR3dY