Increasing numbers of English Studies teachers–recognizing the importance of online literacy practices–are now incorporating assignments into their classes that require students to design and publish homepages on the WWW. In addition, increasing numbers of students are undertaking the design of such pages on a self-sponsored basis, as they showcase their personal interests, indicate to prospective employers the extent of their electronic literacy skills, and create an online space for themselves. Professionally, however, we have paid little attention to the ways individuals establish their identities online within, and through, such pages. There is a good deal of published work on women's experiences with computers generally, and some preliminary work on women's identity experience on the Web. We do not have a great deal of information about how gender may figure into the complicated interconnections of online identity, agency, and power in an increasingly technological and virtual world.

I offer an analysis of the Web sites of several female students; first, to attend to the gender gap in Web-based research secondly, to attend to the gap in research focused on identity formation in online realms; and, finally, to offer teachers specific strategies to consider as they integrate Web-based research and publication into their classrooms. Focusing on the Web pages these students create allows attention to local settings and situated actions crucial to better understand the more general or global actions our students take when they read and write Web pages, and will lead us to the productive techniques we must develop to read and write Web pages.