An ethnographic study described a successful educational environment for students from low-income families and examined what it is about those environments that makes them successful. The subject class was a combined fourth and fifth grade class at Taft Elementary School in a predominantly African American working class community two miles from the downtown of a western city. The teacher, a white, middle-class woman, structured her class around the daily practice of writing and said that she used a "whole language" approach. Reading and writing instruction were videotaped for 8 continuous days at the beginning of the school year, and for 5 days in February, and 2 days in May. Students were interviewed in February and May. Results indicated the existence of a highly coherent and inclusive social system--a social system characterized by clearly defined and valued practices in which all students are invited and expected to participate, and an overriding consistency of messages communicated through participation in routines and through language. There were overarching values implicit in everything that took place, so that all activity was purposeful. (Contains 18 references.) (RS)