This article explores how beginning teachers use and learn from curriculum materials. As part of a longitudinal study of beginning English teachers who teach in the Pacific Northwest of the United States, the researchers tracked teachers’ responses to and use of materials over time, and how these materials shaped their classroom practice. The authors found that the teachers spent an enormous amount of time searching out curriculum materials for their classes and that the curriculum materials they encountered did, indeed, powerfully shape their ideas about teaching language arts as well as their classroom practice.