In New York City, urban suspended students are being educated in settings where the teaching practices are not adequately aligned with students' lifeworlds to produce academic achievement. As a result of instructional misalignment, many students resign themselves from actively learning and, in effect, preclude themselves from further associated courses of study in institutions of higher learning. Suspended student choices to disengage from school may limit further the opportunity for higher education and future career options. Urban suspended students are often the most disadvantaged in excelling in high school because the practices, language, and traditional classroom structures used to teach are asymmetrical with their lived experiences. This research consisted of a two-year of study in a New York City Suspension Center where urban students studying social studies and biology were engaged in cogenerative dialogue with teachers to create aligned learning and teaching practices that would access their lifeworld knowledge, while covering the canonical standards of the curriculum. In spite of all the skills the youth in this study possess, these students are greatly at-risk of dropping-out of school or being incarcerated because (1) they are suspended for a full academic year, (2) many are involved with New York City's Juvenile Justice system and are either on probation or parole, (3) most are under-credited and overage for their respective grade and (4) more than one-third are special education students. The teaching practices in this study were co-authored and co-implemented by students and teachers with the intention of accessing students' dispositions to act by rooting the discourse of the curriculum in lifeworld culture and standards based social studies or biology. During the two-years of this research, the students demonstrated their curriculum knowledge by introducing their lived experiences into the classroom curriculum. This dissertation expounds on how students' practices served as resources to support both personal and collective learning.