Creating an empowering and positive classroom environment requires focusing on the processes of developing trust in self and others, participation and communication in the classroom. Establishing a classroom that accommodates diverse students who have varied backgrounds, interests, and preferences poses a challenging situation for university teachers who must adapt their teaching methods to provide students with multiple opportunities to succeed. One such method worth examining is the use of storytelling or personal narratives for students in basic communication courses. Teachers who share personal narratives to promote understanding of communication concepts may help co-create a classroom culture in which students feel comfortable sharing personal stories that relate to the same concept. A narrative assignment, "Conflict Storytelling," illustrates specifically the communication concepts of perception, empathy, proximity, inference, point of view, and selective retention, which students can easily relate to their lives and personal experiences. Through use of such pedagogy in the communication classroom, teachers may orient students to different ways of knowing, learning, and making sense of communication concepts. (Contains a handout of the storytelling assignment and 29 references.) (CR)