In this article, the authors make an attempt to operationalize the notion of identity to justify the claim about its potential as an analytic tool for investigating learning. They define identity as a set of reifying, significant, endorsable stories about a person. These stories, even if individually told, are products of a collective storytelling. The authors’ main claim is that learning may be thought of as closing the gap between actual identity and designated identity, two sets of reifying significant stories about the learner that are also endorsed by the learner. Empirical illustration comes from a study in which the mathematical learning practices of a group of 17-year-old immigrant students from the former Soviet Union, newly arrived in Israel, were compared with those of native Israelis.

During their school years, students encounter difficulties of various types from both content-related and emotional aspects. Often, when asked directly about their learning difficulties, students struggle to express these difficulties explicitly and clearly; as a result, teachers find it a challenge to provide them with a suitable and satisfactory response. In order to help students express their scholastic difficulties, particularly cognitive and emotional ones, and foster their ability to chart out courses of action for coping with these difficulties, we have developed a tool we call "Corresponding with the Professor". Specifically, this involves writing a letter to an imaginary Professor which contains a description of a difficulty (or difficulties) followed by writing a detailed letter of response from the Professor (to oneself actually) that offers suggestions and recommendations aimed at possible ways of coping with the difficulty (or difficulties). In developing this tool, we have relied on research literature related to writing a "letter to myself". In this paper, we shall present the tool and its theoretical basis.

Many education systems around the world are currently highlighting the importance of social-emotional and personalized learning. The need for teachers to respond optimally to these educational goals often presents a complex challenge. To help teachers address this challenge, we designed a didactic-pedagogical tool we call "correspondence with the professor", to provide them with a means to develop in their students the ability to reflect upon and take personal responsibility for their learning, while at the same time allowing teachers to become better acquainted with the inner world of their students. The idea behind the tool is to have students write a letter to an imaginary professor describing the scholastic difficulties they face; this is followed by a detailed response letter addressed to themselves from the imaginary professor, in which they offer proposals for resolving each of the problems presented. In studies conducted, which served as the underpinnings of the tool's design, we examined the benefit of the tool for cognitive, emotional, and personal aspects of learning, as characterized by both teachers and students. This paper takes a teacher-focused perspective of the tool.