Education reform mandates that teachers be able to function competently in multicultural classrooms. This paper describes a culturally aware teaching model designed to address the problems and needs of rural at-risk students. The major goal of the model is to empower students through acceptance, understanding, respect, and appreciation of both the self and other cultures. The pedagogically nontraditional model, developmental in nature, stresses a common culture curriculum that includes contributions of Black, Native American, Hispanic, Asian, and religious minorities within the student population. The program integrates social studies and language arts to form a core curriculum and draws heavily from literature as a means of teaching much of the content area. Emphasis is placed not on the textbook, but on creative experiences developed through the unit approach and the use of appropriate literature. To match the unique learning styles and characteristics of rural students, cooperative learning experiences are introduced. This approach enhances the self-worth of rural at-risk students and strengthens the positive correlations between self-concept and school achievement, thus reducing the at-risk factor. (Contains 22 references.) (LL)