Although the implementation of the No Child Left Behind Act in 2001 created new instructional intervention practices, reading and writing scores across K-12 and postsecondary levels continue to reflect stagnant achievement outcomes. The research questions in this study concerned the effect of a northern Michigan middle school language arts intervention, in the form of a service-learning project, on student academic achievement as indicated by Michigan Educational Assessment Program (MEAP) reading scores. The service-learning intervention provided an educational opportunity for students to learn through personal experiences based on David Kolb's experiential learning theory. An experimental research design was used for the study where 70 randomly selected 6th-grade language arts students participated in a 9-week service-learning project. After data collection, the students were grouped by their performance assessment scores into 4 categories. Descriptive statistics and a 1-way ANOVA were conducted to examine possible differences between group means. Nonsignificant results showed that the service-learning project had no effect on MEAP reading scores from 2011 [F(3,66) = 0.392, p = 1.00] and 2012 [F(3,66) = 0.426, p = 0.735] as measured by a performance assessment. An outcome-based program evaluation studied the effectiveness of the service-learning project on student academic achievement. Findings were presented to the targeted audience; a continuation of a program evaluation for 2013-2014 was recommended. The findings led to social change through community partnerships and the development of teacher professional development opportunities, which included training for classroom service-learning program implementation and classroom alternative performance-based tasks. [The dissertation citations contained here are published with the permission of ProQuest LLC. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Copies of dissertations may be obtained by Telephone (800) 1-800-521-0600. Web page: http://www.proquest.com/en-US/products/dissertations/individuals.shtml.]