This article describes two very different projects undertaken in the same basic writing course: collaborative ethnography and ACT test prep. At first glance, it appears that the work on collaborative ethnography accomplished our goal of creating better, more self-conscious writers while the work on test prep achieved our goal of creating better written products: essays that pass the standardized test. However, that interpretation ignores the powerful interaction between these two elements of the course and how each served as the context of the other.