Positioning Herself as a Writer: Adolescent Writerly Identities Online and Off-Line

• In Event: Roundtable Session 29
  In Roundtable Session: Developing Early Adolescents’ Identity, Self-Concept, and Skill as Writers

Abstract

This analysis examines one female’s writing practices and identity development across three contexts: school, home, and on FanFiction.net. Grounded in a sociocultural perspective, this longitudinal inquiry involves interviewing the writer, her family, and her English teachers to construct an instrumental case study that represents the particularity and complexity of this adolescent writer. Data analyzed include interview transcripts, writing artifacts, and researcher memos. To explore the way she takes up or rejects identities offered to her in each of these contexts, an identity as position metaphor was used. This lens makes visible how she socially constructs her writerly identity in relation to others in these contexts, and how each offers different access to positions like expert, perfectionist, and risk taker.

Authors

• Jayne C. Lammers, University of Rochester

• Valerie Lieberman Marsh, University of Rochester