When the author and her teaching colleague assessed their 7th and 8th grade students' research papers, they realized that although the papers demonstrated proper structure, the students had not gained meaningful understanding of their topics. Although the teachers had carefully prepared students to write, they had not ensured that students had adequate knowledge on which to base their writing. In response to this realization, the teachers developed a systematic approach called Writing for Understanding, which includes strategies for building working knowledge. In their own teaching and in other classrooms, they have observed that ensuring that students acquire working knowledge "keeps all students firmly in the game."