In this course, we will read texts by American authors and practice critical thinking skills to help us describe and interpret meanings, literary conventions, contexts, historical periods, and cultures. Although we will approach our readings with goals that will change over time, there are a few specific questions we will frequently ask again throughout the course. Here are some of those questions: How do the literary conventions and forms of a text influence the meanings within a text? What literary conventions and forms are unique to a given historical period? What does it mean for literature to be American? In this course, we will read works from various genres such as poetry, short fiction, graphic novel, speech, song, essay, memoir, drama, and letter to see how different genres lead us to different answers to the above questions.