This report, using qualitative methodology, investigates the collaborative teaching and learning of a university educator and an elementary educator, and the learning of eight fifth graders from their social studies class. The report analyzes the extent to which these co-teachers implicitly modeled collaboration for the students and the ways in which they explicitly promoted a community of learners. This report investigates whether the language and concepts used in social studies inform students' ways of knowing about their own learning community. The ways in which the teachers' and students' histories and enculturation affect the learning community also are studied. The issues which positively and negatively impact a learning community are examined. The report explores the social text of the classroom: the learning community. This report is presented as a story because stories are a "time-honored way" for teachers to talk to one another. However, this is not merely a story, for it raises critical questions about teaching practice and the learning community in social studies. (Author/LBG)