For teachers, demonstrating that the classroom is a safe environment for all students, and that respect is expected at all times, is vital. For these two things to occur, open lines of communication between the teacher and students are key. While preparing lesson plans as a first year graduate teaching assistant in composition, an instructor begins to reflect about the tone she had established in her secondary classrooms, especially when she was a student teacher. This paper recounts her student teaching experiences at Highland Park High School (a predominantly black school) in Topeka, Kansas in 1998. The paper also considers what a composition teacher needs to do for her students' writing to improve, for example, "allow them to make mistakes." It recounts several things that happened in her university writing classes when she taught a mini-grammar lesson followed by oral discussion. The paper concludes by returning to a statement from its opening paragraph: Four items must be established on day one in the classroom--trust, respect, communication, and discipline. It contends that it is vital that all four be maintained throughout the semester and/or academic year, and that, moreover, students must sense that teachers not only care about them, but want them to succeed. Lists 10 works cited. (NKA)