Trust is a central component of caring, reciprocal relationships among teachers and students. It goes beyond teachers caring solely about students' academic achievement and includes caring about what matters deeply to students, their families, and their communities. To examine the importance of teachers creating trusting relations with their students through their writing and literary response, this article draws on a larger study of Ms. Johnson's fifty- one twelfth- grade students in a suburban high school (Aukerman and Beach; Beach and Aukerman; Beach and Beauchemin). The authors examined students' writing and responses to literature and conducted interviews with Ms. Johnson and the students in her classes. As part of the study, students in her twelfth- grade composition classes wrote personal narratives and college admissions essays in the beginning of the school year portraying specific events in their lives. Students also engaged in "mini- ethnography" assignments in which they described use of language and dress unique to their peer group. They also responded to literary texts by inferring connections between characters' relations and their own relations, as well as responding to prompts to reflect on the portrayal of relations in the three writing assignments. Through these activities, Ms. Johnson framed the English language arts curriculum as inseparable from building social connections in her classes.