Literacy and Identities

Abstract

Literate identities, reading identities, and writing identities describe the ways that a person constructs the self as a reader, writer, and user of language. The study of literacy and identities is grounded in the idea that literacy is not just about skills related to language, print, and texts but about individuals who must develop these skills. The learning of these skills is mediated by a person’s developing beliefs about language, literacy, and the self. Successful readers and writers enter, make sense of, and produce texts through personal and relational connections. Literacy, in this sense, is not just about knowing, using, and producing language and text but about ways of being in relation to language and text. Multiple perspectives on identities have provided insights into how social, cognitive, and other aspects of the self develop in relation to reading, writing, and language. These highlight the close relationship between literate identities and literacy learning in formal and informal educational contexts, and the ways that literate identities are linked to literacy achievement. Developmental approaches have considered how and when views of the self form in relation to reading and writing experiences and instruction and have extended the study of literate identities from before school entry through adulthood. Attention to multilingual learners has provided insights into the multiplicity of literate identities people construct and pointed to the ways that attending to the whole person as a reader and writer can support literacy achievement.