From the colonial period to the contemporary — the writers, movements, and arguments that defined American letters.
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97% Completion RateCourse completion rate
28–30 DaysAverage course completion
Save $650+vs. average community college cost
Self-Paced · Final Exam · ACE & NCCRS Recommended
What You'll Learn
A full semester of american literature — completed at your own pace, with no deadlines or fixed class times.
Learning Outcomes
What You'll Be Able to Do
✓Construct a comparative analysis of at least two literary periods, explaining how the cultural and historical conditions of each era shaped its dominant themes, narrative forms, and authorial voices
✓Interpret literary texts across multiple genres — fiction, poetry, drama, autobiography, and essay — using established methods of close reading and textual analysis
✓Compare how different authors within and across periods address shared American concerns such as identity, freedom, inequality, nature, and nationhood, drawing reasoned conclusions about each author's distinctive perspective
✓
Course Curriculum
Your path through the course
Work through each lesson at your own pace and build your understanding step by step.
Apply knowledge of literary devices, verse forms, narrative techniques, and critical terminology to construct evidence-based interpretations of primary texts
✓Evaluate the historical and social contexts of specific literary works and justify how those contexts shaped an author's formal choices, subject matter, and intended audience
✓Construct well-supported written arguments about literary texts, selecting relevant textual evidence, anticipating counter-readings, and organizing analysis for clarity and persuasion
✓Critically assess how major American literary movements — including Transcendentalism, Realism, Modernism, the Harlem Renaissance, and Contemporary Multiculturalism — responded to, challenged, or transformed the social and political conditions of their historical moment
✓Evaluate the literary strategies employed by historically underrepresented writers — including Indigenous, African American, immigrant, and women writers — to claim narrative authority and challenge dominant cultural assumptions within the American literary tradition
✓Produce an original literary analysis essay that synthesizes close reading of primary texts with knowledge of historical context, literary movement, and critical terminology to construct an independent interpretive argument
