The writing identity work of youth: a review of the literature

Research in the field of writing and identity work argues for broader understandings of what it means to write and teach writing by foregrounding why and how learning occurs within a social, historical, and cultural context. Identity work as a research stance places value on the people doing the reading and writing and the contexts in which they situate themselves rather than considering text as a stand-alone product or writing as a decontextualized skill. Despite the breadth and depth of research in this area, there is not a comprehensive analysis of scholarly work on writing identity work, specifically focused on adolescents. To address the gap, this thematic, systematic literature review examines 91 articles focused on the writing identity work of youth. Findings show five common themes across the literature that illustrate how scholars define and describe how youth engage in writing identity work within a variety of contexts. Drawing directly from the findings in our review, we posit four principles of writing identity work to provide clearer and more consistent terminology and principles for scholars to draw on in the future.