In the Garage (Grad School)

Writing on the rain

For my Master's Degree thesis I evaluated the academic writing of a student at the University of Texas at Austin. He was someone I used to chat with when I worked in the library, and he'd told me that he taught himself to write. I thought that might make an interesting thesis topic and asked to see some of his college papers. They were highly unusual and I saw immediately he was not the typical student.

I had no idea what to make of such strange writing. It was not academic yet it was highly insightful. And it was fun to read! It was a whole different way of relating to the world and a different way of understanding information. It was like he was speaking a different language entirely from what students are taught to use to succeed in college. If he was unwilling or unable to use the standard academic way, should he be penalized?


His papers were often written in free association, but eventually wound their way to the point. They were vaguely poetic and full of synonyms and contrasts, paradoxes, long strings of clauses, alliteration, metaphors and similes even for courses as dry as, for example, Urban Development.

And most notable, a strong sense of rhythm, repetition and parallelisms. His sentence structures were playful. His papers read like hypnotic poetry.

When he gave an example it was often outlandish, but served the purpose. His logic was not standard but moved sideways, relying on associations rather than "a equals b." More of "how a reminds me of b." He engaged in philosophical musings for the most basic papers that called for no speculation at all.

What a child thinks of his intelligence
 begins early in life

H. Daumier

Most of his professors barely passed him, but two of his professors had given him all 'A's. Here was clearly not just a non-traditional student but a controversial one who strongly polarized opinions. I couldn't wait to tackle this in a thesis. It was to prove to be the most perfect subject-researcher match imaginable.

My advisors told me I couldn't just dive in, I had to provide an academic framework first (nonacademic as this would be), so I first had to analyze his writing by standard methods. After that, I was free to discover the standards that were inherent in his writing, rather than look for outside standards.

He told me that the whole reason he went to college was to learn to write, and to challenge himself. He did not see school as a place to learn or to show what he could do, but a place to challenge himself. By definition his papers were meant to reach beyond his abilities.

I found all kinds of inventive logic, poetic devices, and other things such as what I have already listed above. He used dense, complex sentence structures and logic patterns. Serious stuff in the guise of playfulness. I found his writing to be fantastically complex and unique. 

in the garage

I noticed that there was a marked rise in his poetic style sometime in his junior year. Suddenly one semester he became highly descriptive, using three synonyms at a time and creating far more rhythmic, episodic sentences. I interviewed him on tape and one of the things I asked him was why his style changed so abruptly. After the interview I couldn't remember his answer.

A few months later when I listened to the tapes, I got to that part and realized the reason I couldn't remember his answer was because I hadn't heard it. He'd dropped his voice and mumbled his answer and I'd overlooked it. I had focused instead on his next sentence. If I had not taped it, it would have been lost and forgotten.

The next sentence was "I consecrated all my pens." That hadn't struck me particularly at the time, but coming right after the hushed mumbling made me realize that I really wanted to know what was the secret he'd mumbled. I couldn't ask him, because he'd moved away and I didn't know how to reach him. I replayed that portion of the tape probably some 10 or 15 times.

Here's how it went:
"Do you know why your style became so much more poetic in your junior year?"
"That's when I moved into my parent's garage and mumble mumble. I consecrated all my pens."

At last- finally, finally, finally! I figured out what he was mumbling.
"I became a warlock. I consecrated all my pens."

Hahaha! Talk about Masters-Thesis Gold!

I consecrated all my pens

This new information completely illuminated what was going on in his prose. To a warlock, words are not merely important- spells are words that work magic. A warlock must be very careful of what words he chooses, for each word has its own power. As for the rhythmic, episodic and repetitious nature of his writing, was that not incantation? No wonder he became so obsessed with language.

Though this was the highlight of my thesis, it was not the most important thing. It was a nice sideshow to liven up the real work I was doing in working with this non-traditional student. The real point to my thesis was to see what's up with a non-traditional student, who may be just as intelligent as a traditional student, in fact perhaps moreso for being so creative and forging his own way.

However- the big however- he will fall through the cracks of the system. That was the point of my thesis. His creativity will not be recognized for what it is, or appreciated. And indeed that is exactly what happened to my subject- with no one encouraging or guiding him, and being docked for his way of relating, he dropped out of college and went back home to be a plumber again.

I also examined his background and I wrote about how even back then (much moreso now) students get tracked even from first grade. Teachers had been telling him his whole life that he wasn't good enough, and he believed it. His fate was sealed long ago.

There is a great irony here. He dropped out, yet he was, in my mind, a superb student: he took his work far more seriously than any student I had ever seen. The irony is that out of all those traditional students in his classes, he probably loved school the most, read with the most pleasure, worked harder, and cared about what he was doing the most. His fascination with language and knowledge made him probably the most engaged student in the class.

My thesis made suggestions to teachers when confronted by an unusual student, how to understand him and coach him. Such students have misunderstandings about academic writing and teachers should not simply penalize them. He even had misunderstandings about what college is for in the first place, thinking of it as a chance to challenge himself beyond his abilities. A student should be told his choices.

What a terrible thing happened to this student. We must remember to take a second look at people and not make such quick judgments. What are our students telling us? We have something to learn from them. We have to take our time and be a little more humble.

One of the readers of my Master's thesis was the eminent rhetorician James Kinneavy. He wrote a reference in which he said of my thesis:

"The analysis was, in my opinion the most thorough analysis by a student of a case study sample of writing that I have ever seen at the master's degree level in twenty-five years at the University of Texas.
She is clearly highly superior to most master's degree candidates in her field."