One excellent way to create symbolism topics is to have students analyze symbols in a book or film. For example, the symbol of eyeglasses on a billboard in the novel "The Great Gatsby" could be a topic for an essay. Give students a text or have them watch a film that is rich with symbolism and assign individual symbols to students.
Another piece of familiar symbolism comes in religious symbols. Try to assign students individual religious symbols to write an essay about, such as crosses, the Star of David, the lotus flower or others. Make this a research essay so that students do not get into personal beliefs when writing the essay.
Another fertile source of symbolism is psychological symbolism, particularly Freudian or Jungian dream symbolism. Some examples of psychological dream symbols include caves, trees and houses. Assign students individual symbols and ask them to research what it means according to different psychological interpretations.
Another excellent way to help students to explore symbolism is to look at their own personal lives. For example, ask students what images they like to doodle or what kinds of objects they like to collect. If a particular student likes to collect images of trees, he might write about the tree as a personal symbol and what it represents to him.