Although immigrant youth make up more than 20 percent of school-age children in the U.S., little is known about how they manage school assignments and texts. In this paper the author presents Tara (pseudonym) as a telling case of a first-generation immigrant youth who is encountering and grappling with academic literacy--defined as not only the knowledge of how texts are written and interpreted, but also the capacity to manage the school-based reading and writing tasks. In constructing the case, the author drew on interview and ethnographic observation data, as well as samples of Tara's school writing. In the findings, the author illustrates how Tara makes sense of her life and education in the U.S., and how she responds to academic texts and discourses. The paper concludes with several pedagogical ideas for supporting students of diverse cultural and linguistic backgrounds to develop more powerful academic literacies.