This book is based on research conducted in a bilingual, (Spanish and English) working-class neighborhood third-grade classroom. It is a qualitative, ethnographic study of the classroom as a system that uses exemplary teaching to show how whole language learning can be explained as a tension between personal invention and social convention. The Sunshine Room, as the classroom was called, evolved throughout the 2 years of the study. The four critical events that are narrated were: (1) the process of negotiating curriculum for the year; (2) the creation of a theme cycle about the Middle Ages; (3) the vicarious experience of war through children's literature and discussion; and (4) a friendship between two children from different cultures. In keeping with the whole language approach, the classroom exemplified a high level of intellectual expectation, symmetric power and trust relationships, authentic language and literacy events, and additive bilingualism and biliteracy. Thirty-three figures illustrate the discussion. Four appendixes present bibliographies for the study of the Middle Ages and war and peace, a whole-language checklist, and an excerpt from a classroom script. (Contains 190 references.) (SLD)