Data gathered through ethnographic observations of 25 college students in an adolescent literature course were used to develop a substantive grounded theory of the process of involving students in a class. In addition to observation of the class, data were collected through teacher and student interviews and from lesson plans, class handouts, examination papers, grades, and student course evaluations. Data analysis focused on discovering those teaching processes that resulted in enthusiastic student response to the teacher and to the class. Results yielded a model of the social psychological process of involvement that includes two defining characteristics--reciprocity and recursiveness--and six subprocesses of involving--acclimating, evoking, establishing rapport, staging, elucidating, and expressing purpose. These subprocesses designate a series of purposeful actions and speech acts that lead to the creation of involving events in a classroom and, together, they and their attendant strategies, conditions, and dimensions comprise a taxonomy of teacher behaviors. The data analysis supports the notion that student involvement is a central variable in the teaching process. (The primary concepts of the taxonomy emerging in the study are illustrated with excerpts from the extensive fieldnotes and interview transcripts.) (FL)