There's something different about Oscar Hallas's senior writing portfolio, and you can put your finger right on it, starting with the lid.

Instead of the standard three-ring-binder, the creative writing major delivered the 300-page anthology of his work to Monica Berlin, associate professor of English, in a custom-made wooden box.

It's a first for both of them: the first time in her 18 years at Knox that Berlin has received a senior writing portfolio in a box -- although some have been submitted unbound -- and the first time Hallas built a special box to hold something he wrote.

Hallas has lots of binders -- they contain scripts of plays that he was in during high school. "This was different," he says of his collection, mainly nonfiction, but also including fiction, playscripts, filmscripts and "one solitary poem."

"I felt that it deserved more than a binder. It feels more complete this way," he says.

"It took about three days to make it," Hallas says. "My friend, Nick Chapin, gave me all this nice wood he had stashed away -- cedar, cottonwood, sandalwood. He helped with the plans, and he also made the handle."

The underside of the lid bears the autographs of Hallas and Chapin, several writing faculty and the students in the informal writing group that Hallas worked with this term. "I wanted everybody who helped make this happen to be in here, so I got them all to sign it."

Hallas learned the basics of woodworking from his mother. "When she moved to New York in the 70s and was a starving artist, she was looking for furniture and decided to build it. She's a pretty good carpenter."

Sounds like a story that Hallas could consider writing, along with other things he's written about -- "cities and language and people, my family, my high school friends, and trains and water and music and trees..."

"Senior Portfolio represents the culmination of a student's four years of work," Berlin said. The portfolios are all big, requiring students to edit their own work and craft an in-depth introduction.

The box may be unique, Berlin says, but it won't earn Hallas any extra points. Although it does look cool next to the notebooks that hold the 16 other senior writing portfolios that Berlin is reading this week.

After graduating from Knox on Sunday, June 7, Hallas says he plans to move to New York and continue working as a musician.

Above, Oscar Hallas talking with professor Monica Berlin; holding the autographed box lid from his writing portfolio. Larger photos included in the Creative Writing album at Flickr.