This paper reports on Year 1 of a two-year study of implementing new literacies strategies into social studies and English/language arts content areas in two low-performing middle schools (grades 6-8). Situated within a New Literacies Studies framework, the study addressed three overarching questions: (1) What are teachers' and students' understandings and uses of new literacies in in-school contexts? (2) What new literacies strategies do teachers implement during the year? And (3) what are the curricular and instructional outcomes at the end of Year 1? Findings revealed that teachers and students, although exposed to new literacies in content areas, viewed literacy in a traditional manner. Although teachers were excited about learning new literacies strategies, they had difficulty implementing them in instruction and often used them as schema activation or as culminating activities for units of study. Furthermore, an ingrained traditional school culture that focused on year-end state assessments often hindered teachers' and students' uses of and explorations with new literacies. (Contains 2 tables.)