In this study the authors investigate the experience of Sandy, a nontraditional university undergraduate whose student teaching took place in a small, impoverished rural community in the southwestern U.S. They focus on her student teaching experience with third graders in a community whose youngsters, living in rural poverty, were at-risk in their literacy development. Given Sandy's mission as a teacher, the authors attempt to understand what accounted for the conception of teaching that she ultimately adopted to guide her instruction during student teaching. To do so, they investigate the following question: Over the course of student teaching, within what tensions does Sandy's concept of functional literacy emerge, and how do these tensions contribute to and shape this conception? They focus in particular on her instruction in sequencing, a recurring emphasis in her teaching that was supported by both her mentor teacher and university supervisor. This concrete ability to order information, the authors infer, embodied Sandy's belief that students needed direction and order as part of the meaningful transactions with their worlds. (Contains 2 tables and 1 note.)