Lecturers are challenged when creating safe, dialogic-educative spaces for first-year students (freshman), where optimal teaching-learning of academic writing can be accomplished. This paper reports on a project aimed at creating a safe, dialogic-educative space in which first-year students may attain and practice academic writing skills providing students a threshold into Academia by fostering scholarliness. The significance of the mentor-teacher within this dialogic-educative space, employing process writing and scaffolding as teaching-learning techniques, is emphasized. Methodologically the study employed a hybrid epistemology namely constructivist hermeneutic phenomenology. As participant-observer, I documented this qualitative case study involving education students by making extensive notes, analyzing participants' written texts and through focus group interviews. The study suggests that creating a safe dialogic-educative space contributes towards academic scholarliness and generates a threshold for students into Academia. The results indicate that as participants' contributions were valued, they felt proficient and motivated in the academic literacy class. The process of producing a worthwhile academic text implored students to excel and envisage themselves as budding academics. [For the complete Volume 12 proceedings, see ED597979.]