“Teaching and Understanding Autobiography” workshop participants at the Byrne-Reed House in Austin.

Carol MacKay, University Distinguished Teaching Professor in the Department of English at The University of Texas at Austin, delivers a lecture surveying autobiographical writing in the English and American literary traditions.

Evan Carton, Joan Negley Kelleher Centennial Professor of Rhetoric and Composition at The University of Texas at Austin, discusses critical assumptions that should guide teaching autobiographies and memoirs.

Elizabeth McCracken, James A. Michener Chair in Creative Writing at the University of Texas at Austin, models an in-class writing exercise in her morning presentation.

John Phillip Santos discusses how ancestral and community history can shape personal memoirs. Santos is a University Distinguished Scholar in the Honors College at The University of Texas in San Antonio.

Carol MacKay leads a seminar examining the poem “Sympathy” by Paul Laurence Dunbar and an excerpt from Maya Angelou’s autobiography I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings.

Evan Carton leads an afternoon seminar examining texts by Mary Rowlandson, Zitkala-Sa, Zora Neale Hurston, and Tobias Wolff.

Elizabeth McCracken leads an afternoon seminar on writing exercises that help students improve critical reading skills.

John Phillip Santos discusses an excerpt from his memoir Places Left Unfinished at the Time of Creation in an afternoon seminar.