How do the children in our classrooms get identified as certain "types" of students, as "disabled" or as "competent"? What factors bear on who the children in our classrooms are able to be? How might exploring the answers to these questions lead us to create classroom communities that are more inclusive, livable, and equitable? Beginning with this inquiry, Collins explores how multimodal forms of literacy and varieties of social positioning contribute to shaping students' identities in classrooms. She shares the story of Christopher, an African American boy labeled "deficient" by the school he attends. Drawing on a variety of literacy tools present within his teacher's multimodal instruction, Christopher worked to be recognized as competent within his classroom community. His efforts to do so illustrate how classroom interactions and instructional choices work to position children as "normal" or as "deficient." (Contains 2 figures.)