Missed this year’s English Symposium? Here’s a recap of a few of the panels, featuring everything from best teaching practices to women’s writing legacies.
If you say you study English, people might think you’re doing anything from analyzing literature to teaching English as a second language. But all that variety means there’s something for everybody, and this year’s English Symposium on March 6 and 7, 2025, definitely reflected that. From panels on how to teach reading and writing to exploring common themes in women’s literature (and more), students and faculty of all emphases and interests came together to present and discuss their current research on everything English.
Find recaps from several of the panels below.
Reading Across the Genres: What Writers Learn by Reading Outside Their Genre
A key piece of advice new writers often hear is, “If you want to learn how to write, you have to read, and read a lot.” But that doesn’t mean just reading the type of books you want to write. In this panel, MFA students Kate Romney, Amelia Scott, Christie Gardiner, and Noah Hickman each presented on how reading outside your genre can expand your creativity and offer you new possibilities for exploration.
It's about thinking through problems differently.
“You hazard much by just reading in your genre because you get into ruts,” Hickman said. He explained that experiencing different forms of art—everything from different literary styles to paintings and other visual arts—can jar you into new, enriching ways of thinking. He said, “People writing in the same genre tend to think about problems the same way. . . . [Reading different genres] is not just about the way we present language differently, it’s about thinking through problems differently.”
Teaching English or Teaching Students?: Individualizing Reading and Writing Instruction
In the rush to measure student competence, sometimes the students themselves can get lost in the mix. Undergrads Abigail Griffitts, Sophia Wonnacott, Annika Peacock, Alexis Tucker, Gillian Carter, and Elizabeth Gamez came together on this panel to present their ideas on how teachers can best make their students the center of their teaching efforts, particularly when it comes to teaching reading and writing.
Across their research, they found that teaching efforts should be focused on helping students engage with the material rather than fixating on grades. Students best develop appreciation for reading and writing when they are first taught clear principles and are then allowed to apply those principles to books and essay topics they’re interested in. Teachers will find success as they allow students to self-direct their studies and focus instead on giving concrete feedback, providing opportunities for practice and modeling real-world drafting strategies. Though it’s easy to get distracted by busywork or overly prescriptive advice, Gamez said, “[When teaching], you simplify the extraneous stuff and focus really on what you’re wanting out of the assignment, which is [for them] to develop their writing and reading skills.”
Images of Women, Legacies of Power: Resistance, Freedom, and Belief
The oppression of women and the restriction of their freedoms is historically a global phenomenon, and women’s literature across the world reflects this. In this panel, three students—Coleman Numbers, Michelle DeWitt, and Anya Searle—presented their research on women’s autonomy and resistance to oppression as depicted in Much Ado About Nothing, The Handmaid’s Tale, and works from both Edith Wharton and Higuchi Ichiyō. Across their research, they discovered common themes of women participating in their own oppression by policing other women as well as society’s reduction of women’s worth to sexuality alone. But they also discovered ways that women pushed back and not only coped with their lack of rights, but changed the future for the better—something they discussed in the second half of their presentation.
One main theme they found in their research was women changing lives (and having their own lives changed) by non-transactional love—in other words, people seeking to connect with and support each other without expecting anything in return. “Trying to make contact with people, utterly divorced from what we might get out of it, is one way to address systemic issues,” Numbers said. “I think that’s at the root of it—approaching people as humans. For me, that’s where it starts.”
Learn more about BYU’s annual English Symposium here.