ABSTRACT
This chapter seeks to reveal the rich, literate practices children undertake when given the curricular flexibility to play out the identities in the company of the peers. It explores identities, and the powerful discourses that have historically demeaned them, influence the making and remaking of one's identity as a student, as a friend, and as a member of communities and affinity groups. The chapter presents language in order to participate in communities and respond to others in relationships. It discusses the issues of language failure are too serious to ignore. The chapter describes a great deal about children's family lives, their popular culture interests, their Halloween plans, and their friendships. It also presents the important social, cultural, and linguistic markers of personhood because literacy is not a neutral practice or a context-free endeavor. Children take up literate identities as ascribed or embodied by the macrodiscourses in the larger society.
