This article explicates the Cultural Modeling Framework for designing robust learning environments that leverage everyday knowledge of culturally diverse students to support subject-matter-specific learning. It reports a study of Cultural Modeling in the teaching of response to literature in an urban underachieving high school serving African-American students from low-income communities who are also speakers of African-American English. The study is situated in the history of research on African-American English as a resource for academic learning, particularly in relation to literacy. Results document the ways that African-American rhetorical features served as a medium for complex literary reasoning and provided contextualization cues to enhance participation. (Contains 1 figure and 2 notes.)