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How can we help students develop identities as writers?

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Read about how one school is working together to think about how to support students in exploring and bringing their identities into their writing.

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The Seven Steps for Crafting Your Writer Identity - The Narrative Project

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As writers, how do we decide, create, nurture, and cultivate our unique writer identities? This list of prompts will help you begin!

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Teachers can create safe learning environments where students develop confidence in their writing abilities and feel more comfortable sharing their work.

KatarzynaBialasiewicz / iStock

"I'm a bad writer." "I need more time." "I'm just warning you, this is terrible."

Welcome to what I call "The Disclaimer." Teachers of writing are familiar with what most students do before they share their work with anyone. For years, I watched even the most confident writers fall prey to The Disclaimer. It made an appearance no matter the situation-whether students were being asked to share their pieces, whether they volunteered unasked, whether they felt good about what they'd created or not.

When I think about The Disclaimer, a scene from earlier in my teaching career comes to mind. It is October 31st, and my students have been working on a writing challenge for the past month as they read snippets of Mary Shelley, Octavia Butler, Edgar Allan Poe, and Stephen King: Write something scary. The prospect of trying to terrify their peers is intimidating, and some students have fallen back on humor, writing so-called "scary" stories about common teenage afflictions like breaking out in acne or applying to college. Those who have taken the task in earnest are understandably more nervous as the day arrives to share their writing. What if their work fails to elicit the ideal response?
Courtesy of Norton Professional Books
I try to be reassuring as the anticipatory buzz intensifies. "Frightening another person is incredibly difficult to do," I say. "When we write, we aim to elicit some kind of emotional response, and we also want readers to turn the page. If we accomplish that, we've already made a lot of progress. Now, do we have some volunteers who are ready to share?"

The response is predictable. The same four students who always ask to go first and who are already at the edge of their seats with excitement shoot their hands straight into the air. Other students sit back, relieved. While the expectation is that most of the class will read their work aloud or pass their papers around to read silently, those who feel more hesitant have been granted a temporary reprieve. Not surprisingly, the students who volunteer first are popular, well-liked, vocal, and frequent class contributors. Three are male. Also not surprisingly, these four students do not necessarily consider themselves to be future writers, nor are they the hardest working individuals in the class. Some of the more skillful writers, the ones who produce the response I identified as ideal, will never willingly put their writing into the hands of others in the class until specifically forced to do so. When that happens and their work is well-received and appreciated, their confidence increases. When it is met with a less overtly approving response, they remain shut into themselves.

For the next hour, students share their scary stories. After the first eager beavers have duly gone and received verbal praise or feedback, it is harder to convince more reticent students to come to the front of the room and read aloud. Often, I accidentally tune out during the less engaging presenters or less skillful content, but now and then, I perk up when I hear something more exciting. The class mirrors my behavior, reacting verbally to what they perceive as excellent and even shrieking when frightened, or by applauding a little more loudly at the conclusion of the presentation. When students get this enthusiastic response, they glow. When they do not, they smile at the polite applause and return to their seats, privately disappointed. The torturous thoughts are written across their faces: I was right. I'm a bad writer.

No matter how each student feels at the end of reading aloud, however, nearly all begin the same way. Before they dive in, they say something along the lines of, "Sorry, guys. This isn't that good. I wrote it really fast, and I couldn't figure out the ending. Anyway, yeah. Sorry."

As much as I might reassure students and try to stop them from sharing The Disclaimer, they will never be able to feel comfortable unless the fundamental issue-writing insecurity-is dealt with more effectively for all members of the classroom community. Even if I am caring and encouraging and believe in my students, I will remain truly frustrated that more students are not volunteering to share their stories. I am excited at the quality of the work students produce and their enthusiasm for the class, but want everyone to feel that same sense of productive anticipation. How can I keep what works, but fix what is clearly broken?

In earlier grades, students exhibit more faith in their own writing skills, but there is a sharp drop-off in their self-perception and engagement after the elementary years. As a 2015 Gallup Poll reveals, students move from about 75% engagement in fifth grade to 34% in the twelfth, bottoming out at a low 32% their junior year of high school (Brenneman, 2016). Around the same time that children begin to grow more reticent about their own skills, accountability measures ramp up as they enter the secondary grades. Suddenly, everything "counts" toward the evernearer destinations of college and career. Teachers are more prone to using phrases like "in the real world," or "in college, professors expect" in reference to the work students produce, often when it fails to meet a desired standard. Assessments also become more high stakes, as tests like the SAT and Advanced Placement exams pave the way for college admissions and credit. The more students hear about what they need to do to be successful adults, the more intimidated many become.

Depending on endless combinations of factors that range anywhere from individual personality traits to the support parents are equipped to provide at home, the way students respond to this sort of extrinsic motivation often runs counter to what adults expect. Rather than accomplish the objective of ensuring that students understand the gravity of their education and buckle down, threatening them with what might happen if they are unsuccessful can stymie growth.

With writing, this problem is magnified because of the personal risk that is associated with sharing what we create. Writing is an expression of the self, which connects directly to how we expose our inner realities to the outside world, no matter how old or successful we become. I am a middle-aged professional writer with years of experience and documented success in my field of expertise.

However, whenever my work is rejected (a frequent experience for almost every writer on the planet), my first reaction is nearly always: I'm not good enough. If I respond that way, imagine how students feel when they take the significant risk of putting their work out into the classroom for all to see. Then, intensify that feeling to account not just for youth, emotional response, and inexperience, but also for a marginalized sense of self. Is it any wonder that kids whose voices may have been stifled elsewhere do not feel comfortable sharing their writing with others? Too many learning environments are simply not safe enough, nor are they set up to become so.

The only way to shift an outdated status quo is to recognize that the problem of inaccessible writing instruction is real, develop new structures and processes that redesign current norms, and continue course-correcting whatever needs to be tweaked. To begin engaging students in writing instruction that includes a more affirming and accessible teaching lens, teachers must first actively interrupt the myth students hold that they are "bad" writers.

Reprinted from Writing Their Future Selves: Instructional Strategies to Affirm Student Identity by Miriam Plotinsky. Copyright © 2023 by Miriam Plotinsky. Used with permission of the publisher, W. W. Norton & Company, Inc. All rights reserved.

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Teachers can create safe learning environments where students develop confidence in their writing abilities and feel more comfortable sharing their work.

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This weekend a friend of mine introduced me to a writer who focuses on habits and decision making named James Clear. He isn't exactly an education writer, but his posts are in many ways completely about education, as they are about how we learn, evolve, and view the world. There was one post in particular called Identity-Based Habits that sent me running to find my notebook for quotes like the following:

Your current behaviors are simply a reflection of your current identity. What you do now is a mirror image of the type of person you believe that you are (either consciously or subconsciously).

I think what grabbed me about Clear's work is that I've been thinking a lot about the massive role identity plays in how students perform in our classes, and his wording so clearly encapsulated what I'd been noticing. The post's introduction to me was also timely, as my interest in identity has further solidified over the last month as I've watched my Juniors go through the spring battery of standardized testing (for regular readers, that is where I've been over the last three weeks). While helping them prepare for these tests, I stood amazed by just how much their core beliefs about themselves seemed to control every aspect of how they approached these tests. The students who identified themselves as a bad writers and expected to fail avoided studying at all costs. The message was clear: They knew they were bad, so what was the point and why spend time thinking about something they will never be good at? On the other side, students who identified as strong writers came into my classroom at all hours of the day with stacks of practice essays, highlighted practice questions, and dozens of clarifying questions concerning the most minor rhetorical or mechanical details. They knew that they were good writers, and they were going to ensure the number the test spit out would match their skills.

I recently came across a researcher named John Hattie who reads every piece of evidence possible concerning education and ranks factors that influence student growth in the classroom. While each year the rankings shift according to new data, the top spot has been clearly occupied by "student expectations" - which is essentially a synonym for student identity - for nearly a decade straight. And after the last month I am even more completely convinced he is right.

Some of John Hattie's Effect Sizes

I've written previously about how a large number of students enter my classroom identifying as bad writers or not even writers at all and how I strive to improve their identities by offering thoughtful praise and building narratives of progress that reframe their journey as writers in a positive light. But I want to go further because during my last round of responding to student papers, I was struck by a realization: If one thinks about it, teachers are the only serious audience most students have ever had for their writing. Sure, a few will be writers outside of class and some might have parents or peers occasionally help with little things, but for the vast majority of students, for their entire lives, teachers have probably been the only ones who have deeply and directly responded to their writing, making teacher responses more than important to student writing abilities; for many students, how their teachers have responded to their writing is likely at the geographic center of how they see themselves as writers.

When considering the massive influence a students' identity has on their learning and the core role teachers play in how most students view their writing, it is essential that we do everything possible to make sure that our responses cultivate positive writing identities for our students. Luckily, some of our best teachers have long recognized the awesome power identities have and the awesome power teachers have to impact student identities. Here are some of the best suggestions that I always strive to keep in mind to make sure that I am helping my students to build writing identities that are positive and growth oriented, as opposed to negative and closed off:

In Teaching Adolescent Writers, Kelly Gallagher's first commandment for building successful young writers is: "Remember that all writers, especially young writers, are fragile. They break easily. Don't pound them by pouncing on every error. Nurture them by keeping the focus narrow and attainable." I am a gardener, and so Gallagher's combination of fragility and nurturing struck a chord with me. When I first look at any paper, I strive to remember this line and use it as my compass for approaching each student with the thoughtful, calculated care that I give to my seedlings when they are transplanted in the spring.

In Embarrassment, Tom Newkirk references a quote from Plato where he compares writing to sending one's child into the world "unprotected from misunderstanding and criticism." In conversations we can clarify, hedge, justify, and otherwise revise our message based on its reaction, but this is not the case in writing for both the student who writes the piece and the teacher who writes comments on it. This is why I always do writing conferences (more on how to do that with tons of students here). No matter how clear and kind I think I was in my feedback, I always have a number of students who are confused, upset, or both confused and upset by my responses; conferences, beyond all of the other benefits they bestow, are my way to read the student to ensure that my messages are received correctly and work towards building up a student's writing identity instead of knocking it down.

In No More Fake Reading, Berit Gordon says that "Teens are grateful to have an adult who listens. And they're shocked when an adult doesn't come with all the answers or lecture on what to do." I've already talked about how essential it is to make it clear that you are listening to students, but what I love about this quote is how it also highlights the importance of not offering answers at times. As teachers it can feel like our job to always have the answer, but by opening space for students to fill in some answers too, you are both making them work (which will help them learn) and showing that you trust that they are enough of a writer to do it right.

In Helping Children Succeed, Paul Tough argues that what makes successful parenting coaches is that they, "don't get hung up on which specific nursery rhymes and peekaboo techniques parents use with their infants; they know that what matters, in general, is warm, responsive, face-to-face-parenting...That parenting approach, however it is carried out, conveys to infants some deep, even transcendent messages about belonging, security, stability, and their place in the world." He then makes the claim that these principles also all hold true for our classrooms too and that teachers, both consciously and unconsciously, constantly send explicit, implicit, or even subliminal messages about how students fit in the classroom. I've found this to absolutely be the case. Students can generally feel how we feel about them, and in the context of writing that often means they can feel whether or not we think they are a good writer. With this in mind, I strive to approach each paper with the mindset that this writer, like every other student in the class, has strengths and areas in need of growth. This might seem like a small shift, but I've found occupying this mindset usually makes a major impact in how I respond, especially in regards to the students who do have a lot of struggles and generally feel as though teachers don't like their work.

In the end, the idea of using our feedback to both teach the students content and to cultivate the students' writing identities may seem like a heavy lift. I get that, as teaching content in the margins is already hard enough and identity is abstract, largely unconscious, and not an easy thing to shift. But it is worth thinking about it, as identity is incredibly powerful stuff. Further, in the end there are actually only four identified factors associated with students developing what are considered positive mindsets. For those, I will end by turning it back over to Paul Tough. He argues that students will have positive mindsets that are set up for success if they believe the following:

1. I belong in this academic community.

2. My ability and competence grow with my effort.

3. I can succeed at this.

4. This work has value for me.

Or put another way, get students to believe they belong, can do it, and should do it, and you have a very good chance to change their writing forever!

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Matthew M. Johnson has taught every grade 7-12, written a book for new teachers, contributes to and Principal Leadership magazine, and taught in both private and public schools. He is currently working on a book for on writing instruction and regularly delivers professional development and keynotes across the country.

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How to Cultivate Strong Student Writing Identities

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This weekend a friend of mine introduced me to a writer who focuses on habits and decision making named James Clear. He isn't exactly an education writer, but his posts are in many ways completely about education, as they are about how we learn, evolve, and view the world.

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Teaching Fortitude to Support Writing Identity | Heinemann

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Writing courage is necessary for discovering one’s writing identity, and writing identity generates tenacity. The two states are interdependent.

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For much of my life, I have struggled with what it means to be a writer. I think I have come to a conclusion that to be a writer one must…

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Prof Partout wishes to be clear. If you feel like writing, please do. If you have to write, then please, please do. In this post, however, Prof P will make yet another confession and suggest some pros and cons on forcing yourself to write. Ultimately he is suggesting learning to know yourself as a writer is what makes you a better writer. That is, it is time to get to know your writer identity.

Confessions first

Prof P has been struggling a little getting his ideas down lately. He recently finished the first stage of a big writing project and thought he had the next big idea. So how come he became shy around the keyboard? Why did he sneak past his workspace where his computer waited patiently for him?

The answer lies not in the idea of writing. Prof P actually is one of those people who once they get going enjoys the writing process. Such people are called masochists, by the way. The real problem is the new idea itself. It still seems half-baked and while the general theme of the project is a good one, the details that will make it shine have emerged in his head yet.

And here is where writer's identity comes into it. Our history as writers determines how we manage writing and the issues that writing inevitably throws up. If we are unaware of our writing identity and history, then we may be feeling frustrations we do not understand. Also, we may not notice the tools we already have developed to resolve writing problems in our past.

A writer identity?

Prof P, like all writers wrestling with new ideas (and with a deadline a long way off), has two choices. Forcing it or being patient. There is something to be said for both ends of that spectrum and it is also possible to find a middle ground. Not writing and waiting for the ideas to become clearer works for some people.

Those people do not feel stressed by marking time. Those people can think things through, create connections just in their heads without writing them into existence. That comes later when the thinking is done. Amazing! Prof P is not one of those people, he needs to write to think. He needs to play with the ideas on paper for them to fully reveal themselves. That is part of his writing identity. Maybe yours too. Maybe not. He invites you to decide.

It is not your voice

A writer identity is different than your voice as a writer. That is about qualities of your text. We all have idiosyncrasies in word choice, preferences for syntactic structures and oft-repeated typos! It is because of your voice that readers can identify you in your text and when you became famous identify your texts because of them.

Writer identity is about what your habits around writing, when you do it, how you do it, that sort of thing. Can you, for example, compose with music/televisions/leafblowers on nearby? Do you require absolute silence? Do you prefer to edit it an entire draft or edit as you go? And do you know what causes you to freeze up in front of the screen or what gets your text flowing from your fingers?

The diary method

To get to know yourself as a writer, keep an auto ethnographic diary of your writing moments. And your non-writing ones. At any point when you are writing and you find yourself noticing things about your process note them down. For example, Prof P discovered through autoethnogaphy that he gets up from the computer a lot. He has done this three times already while composing this post. He worked out it is only a little bit about procrastination but more importantly it is triggered by perceiving the next point to be made as being major! Once he realised this, he understood that he had to try and get the idea down, then walk away and come back to evaluate it.

If you should be writing and you are not, record that in your auto ethnography too. Maybe some written reflection will reveal your blocks. Don't use this type of diary entry to berate yourself though. Prof P wants you to learn about what makes you tick, not give yourself a ticking off! (That's an old fashioned way of saying someone told you off, by the way). Procrastination has many causes and can have more than one trigger per episode. Are you a perfectionist? Do you fear feedback? Or do you suspect your ideas are not good enough? Getting over these hurdles requires you to face them.

A portrait of you as an author

You can learn much broader-scaled things about your writing identity from the diary method. If you write brief summaries of how much you wrote, how much you struggled and/or how much you liked your product, you will see patterns about when you feel good about your writing.

Prof P gets a lot written in the mornings. And in terms of just getting stuff down on paper that is great. But the 5pm-7pm for some reason really seems to be the time when he writes stuff that he is kinda proud of. Anything composed after 10pm is not worth paper it is written on.

In essence, getting to know your writer identity is you getting to know what works for you and what does not. It is shining a metacognitive spotlight on your entire history as a writer. You will soon see the psychological states and contexts where you write smoothly. And it will show you what part of the writing process you need to work on. Your writing identity is not static. It grows and develops as you develop confidence in your writing. So get to work on your writing and your writing identity.

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Writer identity: Know your writing self; love your keyboard

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Prof Partout wishes to be clear. If you feel like writing, please do. If you have to write, then please, please do. In this post, however, Prof P will make yet another confession and suggest some...

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Heidi explained that this is one of her strategies for building a writers identity. This handout explains the process she follows.

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Writer’s Workshop Creative Writing DeBernardi 2025

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In her presentation, Heidi talked about the peer consultation process. This handout explains that process.