A study determined the effects of Whole Language Immersion, a pedagogy rooted in Whole Language and English as a Second Language on two sections of eleventh-grade students in Sumter County, Alabama, defined as at-risk by the Alabama Exit Examination. For 10 weeks, the control group was taught grammar while the experimental group underwent language immersion by daily reading, writing, and speaking. Four quantitative measures were used in pre/post forms to evaluate growth in students' lingual abilities: the Alabama High School Basic Skills Exit Exam, a writing sample, a cloze test, and an attitude inventory. Three dimensions were evaluated in the writing samples: syntactic fluency (T-Units); coherence (NAEP scale), and analytic (Diederich scale). Rich qualitative data in the form of daily classroom observations were also recorded. Analysis of the data indicated significant growth in language ability in both control and experimental groups with no significant differences between mean gain of groups. Informal observations indicated increases of frequency in reading and writing in the experimental group. Although no student had previously completed reading a novel, by the end of the experiment, all students had finished from one to five books. Observed discipline problems diminished as students learned to work cooperatively. Students began to revise for diction, syntax, and audience, and internalized rules of Standard English grammar without direct instruction. Contains 11 references. (Author/TB)