Drawing on the work of one teacher candidate, I demonstrate what can be learnt about the process of discursively constructing a teacher identity through the close study of written plans and portfolios. This teacher candidate positioned herself differently over time in relation to discourses from her teacher education programme about the importance of using detailed knowledge of students to guide planning and instruction. In the end, she downplayed specific information about students, arguing students' interests were "worthless." The findings have implications for the ways teacher educators work with teacher candidates around artefacts of practice. (Contains 1 table.)