The authors of papers in this special issue are in agreement that if schools are to reverse underachievement among rural and township students in the South African context the instructional space must be expanded to include students' and teachers' multilingual repertoires together with a focus on explicitly demystifying how academic language works. This paper builds on these perspectives by highlighting evidence-based high-impact educational responses that respond not only to linguistic diversity but also to socioeconomic disparities and the marginalized status of many underachieving groups. Specifically, I argue that schools can respond to the lack of print access in many socioeconomically challenged communities by ensuring that all students gain ample access to print and become actively engaged with literacy. Schools can also respond to the devaluation of identity experienced by many marginalized communities by exploring instructional policies and strategies that enable students to use their emerging academic language and multilingual repertoires for powerful identity-affirming purposes.