In this article, we argue that prior learning assessment (PLA) essays manifest a series of issues central to composition research and practice: they foreground the "contact zone" between the unauthorized writer, institutional power, and the articulation of knowledge claims; they reinforce the central role of a multifaceted approach to writing expertise in negotiating that zone; and they call attention to new and alternative spaces in which learning is gained and call for new forms in which it may be articulated. Ultimately, we claim that PLA as an emergent discourse compels compositionists to re-imagine not only the students we all teach, but also ways we might better-more explicitly, more reflectively, and more tactically-teach such students about writing as a mechanism for claiming and legitimating learning. [PUBLICATION ABSTRACT]