This dissertation examines the transformative role that emotion plays in learning to write, communicate, and become educated. The basis for this project is derived from nine in-depth life history interviews with diverse students, woven into theories of emotion, writing studies, literacy, rhetorical theory, cultural studies and philosophy, to explore what the presence of emotion does to shape an individual’s connection to literacy, writing and educational identity (Nussbaum; Ahmed; Micciche; Brown; Wetherell). By weaving together life history narratives with interdisciplinary theories of emotion, this project challenges the proposition that emotion stands in contrast to reason, and instead encourages a reformulation of emotion’s possibility in knowledge making, identity, and writing. These narratives reveal that emotion in our students’ journeys through school (and literacy), are not weak byproducts of their memories or lives, but are an intertwined core to how they see, feel, and experience the world. Chapter 1 introduces the dissertation argument, setting up the methodology, study design, and current cultural, social and political conversations occurring around emotion. Chapter 2 examines how emotion facilitates an individual’s connection to the sponsors of their literacy (Brandt, Literacy). Chapter 3 reflects on how race and marginalization impacts student vulnerability and a sense of belonging in school, examining the role ‘emotional labor’ plays in personal advocacy (Hochschild). Chapter 4 elaborates on the relationship between personal conflict, identity, and emotion. And Chapter 5 concludes the dissertation drawing upon a pedagogical and humanistic lens to frame how teachers, students, and researchers can productively understand emotion in our work moving forward. Ultimately, this project argues that emotion is integral to understanding how individuals connect to sponsors of literacy, to being educated, and to being made vulnerable in the process of becoming writers. By engaging in this work I argue for a reorientation of emotion in the field, moving our understanding of emotion from theory to embodied practice – calling upon teachers and students alike to reframe the role of emotion in making meaning and writing, and asking us to rethink what it means to feel one’s way through a writing class or through the process of becoming literate and educated.