Three students were invited to attend the Making Literature Conference at Taylor University Feb. 26-28 after submitting their own works of literature.
Students that were accepted to the conference are Lexi French, senior English major from Palestine, Alyssa Johnson, senior English major from Wheeler, and McKinley Terry, sophomore English major from Longview.
Dr. Joe Stephenson, associate professor of English, and Al Haley, professor in the Department of Language and Literature, will accompany the three students to the conference. The department handled registration for the conference.
Stephenson said students had to submit full papers, not just summaries, by Dec. 15 last year.
“All papers were reviewed by a committee, and acceptance was very competitive,” Stephenson said.
Only three of the five submissions from ACU students were accepted.
The students worked on their papers for months, talking the ideas over with Stephenson and Haley before sending in their final pieces. The students will have the opportunity to win prizes for their work.
French said she put a great deal of time and effort into the piece she submitted and did extensive research and editing for it.
“I had intended to submit a piece I had been working on with Professor Al Haley for almost a year, but the piece ended up being too long,” French said. “Cutting my piece down that much became too difficult, so I ended up submitting a piece that I had only just begun working on last semester.”
While at the conference, students and professors will have the opportunity to hear from and interact with nationally recognized presenters and students from many different colleges and universities. Many of the presentations will be over various genres and topics of literature and writing.
“I am looking forward to the opportunity to see how a research conference works,” Terry said. “It will give me the opportunity to explore my interest and see if academic research is something that I would enjoy doing in the future.”
The students will share their submitted work with other students and professors at the conference. For some this will be the first time presenting their work for an audience outside of the classroom.
“I am so excited to have the opportunity to present my work,” Johnson said. “I am passionate about analyzing the literature we read and the plays we see on a deep level, and I am so thrilled to have the chance to share this passion with others.”
