Innovative Teaching Spring 2026

ENGL 1102 Poetry in the Amphitheater

In the open-air amphitheater outside Park Hall, students in Kaitlin Thurlow's ENGL 1102 course presented poems from the anthology No Place Like Home: Poems, edited by Jane Holloway. Grouped under themes such as "Vacant Possession" and "The People Next Door," the collection transported the class from Horace's Odes to contemporary works by Carol Ann Duffy. The book's pocket-sized portability was like a tiny portmanteau to worlds beyond UGA. 

Lauren Zion (pictured in foreground) selected Ian Hamilton's observations in the poem suite "Neighbours," and Joshua Levinsohn explored the gifts of the kitchen table in Joy Harjo's, "Perhaps the World Ends Here." Motivated by the Cuban-American poet Richard Blanco's narrative poem, "Looking for the Gulf Motel," the class analyzed and compared the ways poets conceive of the notion of home in their poetry unit this semester. Throughout their poetry unit, students tried their hand at drafting their own version of "Looking for the Gulf Motel" by drawing on themes of impermanence, sensory imagery and the use of a refrain like Blanco's: There should be nothing here I don't remember…

ENGL 3570 Game Journal brings New Perspectives 

The new Games Studies professor at UGA, Dr. Taylore Woodhouse, brought an interesting new project in encouraging students to play and study their play in her Games Journal assignment.

Dr. Woodhouse said that the “students choose whatever game they want to play, play for one hour and write about their game experience. People end up writing about many different things, tying gameplay to reading in class. I love how the Game Journal shows how students are not only engaging with sources but bringing in new perspectives. For example, I have had students look at credits on games and think about who is the main creative force behind games. One student wrote that she could not find the name of any of the programmers on the game credits, and called into question whether the operational components of the game are considered creative. The student also asked questions on the business model of mobile game industry, and game transnational politics and ideas of games, as that specific game originated in Russia”.

Dr. Woodhouse also has new ideas for teaching writing. She says that “writing is thought of so differently in video games. At a games conference, I ran into Latoya Peterson, one of the few black women narrative designers in the industry. She got into TV writing before games. In game writing, there is no editing, because of how quickly they want a draft. There is then less room for feedback and work. The approach in the video game industry made me think how that is different to how we teach students to write, and whether game writing can teach us something new in the writing process. It would also be interesting to see how the product of video games changes with the writing”.

Dr. Woodhouse has plans for more classes she would like to teach in the future: “Next semester, I plan to teach a class on fan and audience studies, thinking about reception, fan communities, and even fanfiction. I would also like to teach a class called "What is Race: how do we conceptualize race as something we feel bodily but also a social concept.”

ENGL 4001: Careers for English Majors Alumni Networking Event

On Monday, November 10th, Christine Lasek-White hosted a networking breakfast for current students and two successful English Alumni.  This event was made possible by funding from the Willson Center and the Parents Leadership Council.  The UGA Mentor Program was also instrumental in helping to connect the English Department with our successful and engaged alumni.

The two visiting alumni were Erika Bayonne, Chief Communications Officer of the State Road and Tollway Authority in Atlanta and a 1993 graduate of the English Department, and Kristina Durkin, a 2024 graduate of the English Department who has just started her career as a Public Relations Professional with flooring company MSI.

 Twenty-three current English students attended the breakfast, including the 14 students in Professor Lasek-White's ENGL 4001: Careers for English Majors class.  Ericka and Kristina shared their professional journeys with the group, and then there was plenty of time for questions and networking afterward.

According to one of the students in attendance: “I am writing to say a huge thank you for planning such a great event today, and for speaking up for me during our conversation at the end. I am so grateful to you for all of your efforts to instill confidence in humanities students and create opportunities for us. I really enjoyed the inspiring stories from both alumni and am so thankful such an event existed. It can be so difficult walking into an event dedicated to Terry and Grady students and trying to advocate for the importance of your skillset as an English student. Knowing that both speakers come from an English background was such an amazing feeling!”

Another student wrote: “I loved the breakfast this morning and I was very inspired. Ms. Ericka is so interesting, and I loved how she spoke and how she changed her path and is a literal unicorn. Kristina is cool too!”

ENGL 3590W teams up with the College of Engineering

This fall, Dr. James Howard's ENGL 3590W: Technical and Professional Writing students served as consultants for the College of Engineering capstone midterm reports. The engineering capstone students work with local companies, labs, and other organizations to develop solutions to ongoing problems; along the way, they deliver presentations and reports to tell their story from problem to solution. To perform the consultations, Dr. Howard's ENGL 3590W students formed small groups and reviewed reports from one of four capstone teams. They then wrote annotations and feedback geared toward clear, consistent writing that effectively narrates what problem they are trying to solve and how they plan to address it. Finally, they prepared memos where they summarized feedback and reflected on the experience, including what they learned about both giving feedback on technical projects and about writing their own technical reports later in the semester. The exchange helped both engineering and English students practice effective communication of technical concepts to an actual audience. 

For this project, Dr. Christine Lasek-White (Internship and Career Coordinator for the Humanities) provided the initial idea and introduced Dr. Howard to the engineering communication experts. College of Engineering faculty Dr. Roger Hilten (Assistant Professor of Practice - Design and Innovation), Dr. Jorge Ivan Rodriguez (Assistant Professor of Practice and Industry Capstone Projects Coordinator), and Dr. Wayne Johnson (Senior Lecturer, ECAM) collaborated with Dr. Howard to plan the consultations and pair interested capstone groups with ENGL 3590W consultants.