While a long tradition of sociocultural literacy research suggests that out-of-school youth engage in a range of meaningful literacy practices, we know little about how programs for returning students foster or constrain students' literate identities. Drawing on data from a qualitative study conducted in a community college-based program for out-of-school youth, this paper explores the literacy practices and identities of adolescents returning to school. The data indicate that participants have active out-of-school writing lives and robust writerly identities enacted in relationship with peers and literacy mentors. However, for most students, the return to school resulted in a disruption to those writerly identities as they struggled to meet the program's expectations for academic literacy. This paper suggests opportunities for educators to capitalize on students' out-of-school literacy practices and the fullness of their identities as shaped by their experiences in and out of high school. (Contains 1 table, 1 figure, and 4 resources.)