This article presents the results of three comparative analyses on forty-seven student papers in order to examine the effectiveness of a basic writing course in developing students' academic writer identity. The course curriculum, grounded in social identity theory, focuses on the core writing concepts and dispositions that promote writer identity. Since the curricular focus is writing, this course fits within the broad category of a Writing-About-Writing (WAW) course and specifically draws on David Bartholomae's "Inventing a University" article and Roz Ivanic's research on writer identity.These two scholars present pedagogy that draws on social identity either implicitly (Bartholomae) or explicitly (Ivanic). My comparative analyses demonstrate students' significant development and short-term transfer of textual writer identity, and the analyses reveal advanced textual writer identity compared with students who tested out of basic writing. This research contributes to writer identity theory and demonstrates the efficacy of writer identity content specifically and a WAW-type course generally for basic writing.