In this article the author analyzes a composition written by an 18-year-old student from Puerto Rico fluent in Spanish and English, who struggled with writing in both languages. She analyzes the student's work from a framework of discourse and narrative analysis and the tenets of oral culture. Her intent is to clarify the structural complexity of the student's text and the meaning conveyed in what might at first appear to be a work of little significance. The author also seeks an understanding and acceptance for the complexity, rationality, and power of texts produced by emergent writers writing on the margins. The author concludes that her analysis should not be misinterpreted as a paternalistic reading of a composition that seeks only justification for the use of the linguistic and textual structures that provide its underpinnings. She advocates that educators need to understand that students must have access and control over a multiplicity of discursive forms, although the forms may be valued differentially depending on the ideological orientations of those in power within educational contexts.