What do you know about American Literature?

Who can you identify?With your partner,

write down the names of the

following American authors

(bonus if you can also name a title

of one of their works).

Wasn’t that easy?

You know you are an expert in American Literature if you can identify these three…

Trade papers with another group and

let’s see how you did …

Mark Twain

Huckleberry Finn

Tom Sawyer

Edgar Allan Poe

“The Raven”

“Tell-Tale Heart”

“The Cask of Amontillado”

Walt Whitman

“Leaves of Grass”

Thomas Paine

Common Sense

John Grisham

A Time to Kill, The Firmand several

other lawyer-e books

Maya Angelou

I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings

Arthur Miller

Death of a Salesman

The Crucible

Nathanial Hawthorne

Scarlet Letter

F. Scott Fitzgerald

The Great Gatsby

Ray Bradbury

Fahrenheit 451

Something Wicked This Way Comes

Jack Keroauc“On the Road”

Truman CapoteIn Cold Blood

Langston Hughes“The Weary Blues”

What do you find “odd” about

this collection of authors?

Why do we need to study American Literature?

It reflects us – who we are as a country

Shows how our beliefs as a country were formed

Tells the story of U.S. (pun intended), in a universal way

So, how will we learn it?

Chronological – History & Literature are intertwined

Lots of “ISMS” – philosophical changes in society

Represents the dominant group (ODWG)

(but we will explore authors from outside the dominant group

Latino/a Authors, African American Authors, Asian American Authors, Women, etc.)