Within the context of literacy instruction, the process of becoming focuses on students' literate identities, or the identities that learners take on and construct in the social and cultural context of learning to read and write (Wagner et al., 2024). In this article, the author explores identity with the purpose of using it as an organizing construct to guide literacy instruction in classrooms. To this end, the following questions are addressed: (1) What does it mean to use identity as an organizing construct in the design of literacy instruction?; and (2) What does identity-based instruction look like in the classroom through unit and lesson examples? This article answers these questions by introducing a framework for identity-based literacy instruction that draws from diverse theories on identity and learning, a related body of research, and collaborations with practicing early childhood and elementary-grade teachers. Alongside example units from practicing teachers, this framework offers a vision of what identity-based instruction can look like in early childhood and elementary classrooms.