Sara's story reports the effects of an experimental intervention applying knowledge-building principles for learning, as well as the unanticipated improvement of literacy skills of students with IEPs. According to the author, if you believe that knowledge is socially and collaboratively constructed, as the author does, then an overwhelming challenge for the language arts instructor in this age of rigor and high demands for all is engaging students with individualized education plans (IEPs) who traditionally shy away from participation in classroom discourse. What concerns the author, and this article, is that students labeled as special needs, who may have IEPs outlining specific guidelines for differentiated instruction, may inhibit, rather than foster, the growth of students who need it the most in the social construction of knowledge by allowing their voices to remain essentially unheard by the teacher and, more importantly, by their peers. The challenge, then, is finding instructional practices that scaffold special needs students into valued, productive, and equal collaborators in the production of knowledge. This is the story of Sara and how she, like other students labeled special needs, found her voice. Responding to an invitation to ELA teachers throughout several, regional school districts calling for research participants to test the effects of a knowledge-building approach to literacy instruction, Mrs. Fleck, a sixth-grade language arts teacher in a suburban school adjacent to a major metropolitan city, was selected for the rich academic and ethnic diversity in her classroom as well as her interest in improving students' literacy skills and dispositions.