As the first days of the school year approach, students' stomachs flip, and the unfamiliar classroom looms as a space filled with uncertainty. Each year -- each day -- I strive to transform a formidable academic environment into one where vulnerability is embraced, redefined, and transformed. While learning to utilize critical lenses, English students risk themselves academically, creatively, and socially. My approach to encouraging academic risk-taking consists of two cores from which a deep understanding of language flows. First, I establish a retreat-centered classroom tailored to inquiry and critical consciousness of identity. The study of identity includes development of a personal and consistent writing voice, gained through awareness and interpretation of self and place. The second core of my approach, which facilitates understanding and artistry of the English language, is a tenacious encouragement of curiosity and creativity. I expect creative thought, confidence, playfulness, and curiosity in relation to textual exploration and skillful writing. Students learn to embrace the vulnerability and beauty of forming sophisticated ideas and expressing a true writer's voice. I have been most effective in fostering curiosity and creativity when school leaders and educators share a vision of school culture that values individuality and social justice. As I expect students to expose their identity and curiosity, I cannot expect them to try on voices and authorities if I don't do the same. For this reason, I reveal my personal history and memories, and demonstrate how those experiences inform my writing choices. The most successful instances of this practice have occurred in schools where students actively observed my working relationships with other educators. Through these practices, I hope to foster students' realizations that their stories are just as inspiring as the texts they admire, and that their educational experiences can be enhanced by the relationships they develop within their learning community. In that most vulnerable space of identity and creativity, I seek to provide support, encouragement, and safety.