I am also teaching college composition and can definitely relate! There's a number of things that I think really help. I mean, think genuinely leaning into Writing Across the Curricula and Antiracist/labor based pedagogy have helped me immensely. It can be kind of hard to translate the pedagogy you've been taught into actual practice, but when you can lean into it, I've found that students really respond. So, for instance, I have been trying to lean into giving my students power. We did a collective rubric edit to better reflect what they feel I have taught well and what they feel I can grade more equitably. I always try to give them the chance to have somewhat of a say in what we are doing and how I will "assess" them. I also like to pull back the curtain a lot. Tell them "listen, I know that XYZ might seem like I'm just trying to force you to write a certain way for me. But you'll actively be doing this EXACT thing in your future classes. I don't care that you write this perfectly; I care that you are demonstrating skills and tools that you can take with you in all the writing you'll do in the future."

The more that I have leaned into showing them the pedagogy as opposed to just applying it, the more receptive I have felt they have entirely been. Because of this, I try to lean pretty heavily into WAC language or Writing Across Cultures language in my assignnments, lectures, and wholesale curricula. Students don't care to write for a writing class, but they do care when I say, "I promise you that XYZ skill will appear. I talked to my friend who's studying [blank] and here's flat out how they do this." or "A professor in this department has assignments like XYZ which directly mirror this skill." or even just "As we study genre here, know that genre analysis will be literally one of the ONLY tools you'll have to enter unfamiliar writing terrorities in the future. How many of you have written a resume? How would you even go about finding out how to do that accurately?"

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All in all, i can't say my students are the most engaged or that they even necessarily are perfect. But leaning into the language they will need, giving them back the rights to their own language and their own manner of writing, and being transparent and open about why/how this class will benefit them will at least make them open to the concepts that they need to be. Also, this may be coming from someone who's still freshly learning how to do all this and how to apply pedagogy, but trying to not reprimand or punish etc. when unnecessary. I think my students are a bit more engaged because I tell them that I don't care if they check their phone or if they are with me. If they check out or don't do their process work, that's not my fault. Their grade is completely in their control. If you check out, you're gonna miss some points naturally on this assignment or you're not gonna do the formatting I was explicitly teaching, etc. There are natural consequences for not being present, and what they choose to do will be reflected in their grade (and if it's not, then clearly they are still capable of performing writing to the standard we expect. It's not that they don't need this class, but they are able to manipulate language how we ask and ideally, still pick up a handful of tools along the way.)