The authors conducted this year-long self-study to answer the question: What could the college’s education program do to improve preparation for teaching in inner-city schools? Through their year-long collaboration in a middle-school writing classroom in an inner-city charter school, the authors examined what a prospective teacher learned in his education program that helped and hindered him. Then, they explored how the successful approaches he developed as a new teacher could be incorporated into the college’s preservice program.