This self-study course provides students with an overview of the important writers and works of 500 years of American Literature from Early America to World War II. Class discussions focus on nonfiction essays, documents, poems, speeches, and short stories and their relevance to respective historical time periods. Students are responsible for required works and choose supplemental readings in a genre of their choice to enhance and inform their literary education. Major topics include: Literature of Early America-Colonial, Literature of the Eighteenth Century, Defining America and Americans, Early to Mid-Nineteenth Century, Romanticism, Transcendentalism, Humor and Satire, and finding meaning.