I did not learn to read and write until college. Of course, I could read words on a page; I could form sentences and communicate basic ideas through writing. But I could not comprehend an author’s argument, or write an argument of my own.
All of this began to change when, by the grace of God, my literature professor gave me a D on a paper. I promptly went to his office, hoping to understand why I received such a poor grade, and (if I’m honest) hoping he would change it. I asked him why I did so poorly, and I will never forget his kind but blunt response: “Because your paper is terrible.”
He explained to me that I had no thesis statement and that without a thesis statement a paper does not argue anything. No matter how compelling sections of the paper may be, they amounted to nothing. Just like that my professor destroyed the idealized picture I had of myself as a gifted young man who could do an excellent job when I wanted to. I had wanted to write a good paper, and I failed.
I began to work with the professor to learn how to write. He taught me what a thesis statement is and forced me to start simple; every thesis statement I wrote had to begin, “In this essay, I argue …” Directly after the thesis statement would be a sentence summarizing each section of the paper and how that section supported my argument. These sentences always took these forms: “First, I will,” “Next, I will show,” and so forth. There was nothing stylistically appealing about it, but as my professor taught me, it was effective. Most important, it signaled that I knew what I was trying to say. And so, I began to learn how to write.
The next semester, a philosophy professor continued to work on what my literature professor had begun. First, he taught me how to read. Our philosophy program centered on three main courses: classical, medieval, and modern philosophy. Many philosophy majors would find the program wanting. There were no systematic overviews, my professor never lectured, we did not read a single secondary source, and we were told every class that our opinion on the subject did not matter.
Instead, we read two or three primary sources from a time period (in medieval philosophy we read Augustine’s Confessions, Anselm’s Proslogion and Monologion, and sections of Aquinas’s Summa). We would sit in a circle and my professor would ask each of us what we read, and the moment we gave our opinion he stopped us and said, “No, what did the author say? What did the author argue?”
In class after class, I began to learn how to listen to an author, how to locate their presuppositions and allow those presuppositions to become my own when reading them so that their arguments were not external to me. They become deeply personal and internal to my thinking. My professor would say that we were beginning to understand the presuppositions when we could not figure out how they could possibly be wrong. Then it was time for criticism.
Our grade for the class came down to one 12-page paper. Throughout the semester we had to present our thesis statement to our classmates, who would ask questions to see how we were going to support it. My professor had four rules for the paper: 1) we had to identify what an author was saying, 2) we could only use primary sources, 3) no quotations were allowed, and 4) we could not use passive voice.
The point of the first rule is that the paper should show comprehension of a particular aspect of the text and not what you thought of it. Rules two and three pushed us to express in our words what a text says. There was no hiding behind lengthy quotations from the author or the words of academics. We had to prove that we had a sense of what the author was saying. The fourth rule was meant to help our writing be clear and concise.
Many people reading this essay may disagree with my professor’s stringent rules. Some may argue that not allowing us to use secondary sources inhibited our learning. I disagree. I think my professor knew how dismally prepared we were. He knew he could not take for granted that we knew how to read and write. Just like the free-verse poetry of those who never submitted themselves to meter and rhyme tends to be trash, the academic work of people who never learned to read and write is a waste of time. If you have not properly understood an author, you’re not critiquing them, you are critiquing your own misunderstanding.
What both of my professors were trying to impart to me was a life of philosophy in the classical sense, a life in pursuit of wisdom. They both knew that two of the main skills supporting that kind of life are reading and writing well. With these skills, we can begin to understand our conversation partner, whether a dead author or someone across the table.
My philosophy professor would often say the main goal of his program was that we could listen to a person make a case and repeat the argument such that the person would respond, “I wish I had put it that way.” That kind of listening requires the virtue of charity; the assumption that the person sitting across from you has something to say and deserves to be heard.
When this virtue is applied to reading a text, and in my case as a priest, texts within the Christian tradition, it takes the form of a healthy agnosticism about our knowledge and presuppositions. The Christian tradition provides security in that it gives us a starting place and guardrails, but it also requires us to have the courage to constantly reassess our knowledge and presuppositions. While Augustine and I share the Christian faith, that may be about all we have in common. Listening to him requires that I set aside my preconceived notions about nearly everything.
I confess that in this essay I have not followed my professor’s first rule: I have not given you a thesis statement. Instead, I’ll end with two practical examples from my life when I was thankful for the gift my teachers gave me.
First, I was incredibly thankful for my professors when I started seminary and I could write a paper. The rule that we could not use secondary sources set the groundwork for me to use secondary sources responsibly and appropriately. Every one of my papers in seminary had a thesis statement. Most of all, I was thankful that I entered seminary ready to learn.
My professors had taught me how to learn, and I didn’t have to waste time in seminary learning how. People often talk about being “equipped” at seminary. Although I understand what they mean, I do not like the language. For me, seminary was a pivotal next step in a journey begun in college: learning how to live and function in the Christian tradition for the sake of pastoral ministry.
Second, before seminary I did HVAC work. On a Friday morning, I met a potential employer at a Hardee’s at 6 in the morning for an interview. Over Hardee’s coffee and a breakfast sandwich we talked about the possibility of employment. At one point he abruptly asked, “Can you read?” I laughed and responded, “What do you mean?”
He told me that most of the people he hired could not pick up a manual for a boiler or a furnace and understand it. They could not diagnose an installation problem or maintenance problem through research. Thanks to my professors and the humanities degree they helped me provided me, I was able to say, “Yes, I can read.”
The Rev. Tyler Been serves as the curate at Episcopal Church of the Holy Cross in the Episcopal Diocese of Dallas. Tyler is married to Laken and they have two children, Margaret and Julian.