Sophomores experience life of the author through Great World Texts

It’s not every day students get to meet the author of a novel they read. However, hundreds of high school students had the opportunity to experience just that during UW-Madison’s annual Great World Texts conference, which took place on April 7. This conference provides ample opportunities for students to highlight their creative talents by creating projects through a variety of art forms. West has participated in this annual event since 2012, allowing students to demonstrate their unique interpretation of their assigned text. This year’s novel, Death of the Author, gave students the chance to ask questions of author Nnedi Okorafor through a Q&A session.

The Great World Texts conference strives to include a wide range of books and authors across all different genres and personal backgrounds, and this year was no different. English teacher Abigail Van Eeckhout admires the variety in plot and theme found within this year’s selection.

“To take a very long journey with everyone through this sort of technological landscape and sort of just figure out everything from it. The themes were incredibly different from last year, which was more gender based,” she said. 

This year, 750 students across 25 schools in Wisconsin participated. As this was only her second time attending, Van Eeckhout was surprised by the overwhelming amount of student interest in this year's conference compared to previous events. 

“In my first year, it was about 45 people. So, you could imagine our surprise when we gave out the survey and everyone wanted to come,” she said. “We took a total of about 95 students just from West. I had to ask special permission from UW-Madison.” 

A unique factor in this year’s novel, Death of the Author, was its controversial nature. Its distinctive plot and the demeanor of the characters is what made previously participating schools nervous to continue with this year’s conference. The novel follows Zelu, a disabled Nigerian-American woman and her journey in writing her novel Rusted Robots. Although many schools disliked the content of the book, it was met with critical acclaim and positive reviews from students participating in the conference. Van Eeckhout felt disappointed at this dip in turn out, as the teaching moment this novel and conference provides is critical.

“We actually had a lot of schools drop out this year and drop out in the middle because of some of the content of the book,” she said. “Which is so minor because we didn’t even really talk about that in class.”

Students, ecstatic to partake, had no limit with their creativity for this event. From mosaic artworks, to scrapbooking, crochet, clay models, poetry, and paintings, there was truly something for everyone there. Sophomore Oliver VanThiel was proud to present their own project about individual creativity. 

“My project is about how you reflect yourself into whatever you make,” they said. “You’re always making something, and there’s always a part of you in it. I reflected this through a collage of my own artwork.” 

With all of the time preparing and presenting their projects, students found their efforts paid off. People like sophomore Violet VanHueklon valued the educational opportunities at the Great World Text conference, enjoying her ability to share them with friends. 

“The biggest memories are the memories I made with my friends. That’s going to be something I’ll remember for a very long time,” she said. “I think it’s a really good opportunity to see different types of creative thinkers. It made me think about other perspectives, especially since identity was such an important part of the book.”

Of the 95 students attending from West, just one individual was selected to be the plenary speaker representing the school. Presenting the significance behind her project to the entire conference, sophomore Brooklynn Knoll valued the memorable experiences she had at Great World Texts. 

“It was a cool opportunity, and I was really excited to see how people would react to my project and other peoples’ projects from West,” she said. “Being able to represent our school with that many people from our school going was a really cool opportunity.” 

Students like sophomore Faateha Ahmad pointed out the uniqueness of the conference. Appreciating the event, she had the chance to ask a Q&A question to Okorafor on behalf of West. 

“Seeing her was so surreal, because she was the author, of course, of the book we read in class,” she said. “I think the reason why I enjoyed it so much was because we analyzed all of it.”

Not only does UW-Madison attempt to provide novels by authors with diverse backgrounds and variation in plot, their Great World Text conference delivers a unique perspective on the novel. Van Eeckhout recognizes the event’s ability to allow for students to connect with the book further by incorporating modern authors.  

“Getting to see an author at the top of their game and actually seeing a human being, especially because we have the tendency to read things that are old, where the people are dead or unreachable in any sort of capacity, sort of reminds ourselves that these are actual human created objects,” she said.

by Jocelyn Johnson

Published April 27, 2026

Oshkosh West Index Volume 122 Issue VII