This dissertation focuses on the intersections between digital literacy studies and Girl Studies. Informed by current theories of the development of girls’ subjectivity, I contend that girl-created subjectivities outside of the classroom should be connected to what girls (or by the time they enter our college classroom, young women) are asked to do inside the digital classroom. I propose that girls’ practices of online identity formation before coming to college are a powerful form of digital literacy that college writing instructors should recognize and foster.
In this project, I investigate the following questions: How have online writing spaces affected girls’ subjectivity before entering college? What literacy skills have girls developed from a girl-created subjectivity? Are the criteria of what constitutes girl space adaptable to the composition classroom? What are the routines and familiarities of our female students’ writing processes outside of the classroom? Are such processes and forms recognized within the academic environment? Is the notion of a girl-created subjectivity able to thrive in the academic setting and perhaps more importantly, should it?
With this dissertation, I suggest that we need to have an understanding of a girl-created subjectivity and that it needs to be recognized if we as scholars are to move forward into understanding girls’ development for the sake of girls themselves. I contend that teachers of college composition should work toward allowing an integration of girls’ social activities online with their writing processes in the classroom if young women at the college level are to succeed in the identity exploration that begins in early adolescence.