In order to make sure I did not duplicate any prior study, Katya and I first catalogued the books and plays she previously studied. After examining Katya's literary preferences, we decided that we would first study " Huck Finn" by Twain, followed by JD Salinger's "Catcher in the Rye", and last ,Nora Hurston's novel, "Their Eyes Were Watching God" (which I explained was not a religious book or about religion ).I then outlined on the board American literary movements from the Romanticism of Hawthorne's "Scarlet Letter" to Twain and into the early 20th Century. I explained the significance of Mark Twain to American literature and why some scholars consider "Huck Finn" the Great American Novel. I noted the characteristics of the Romantic novels of the first half of the 19th Century and how Twain, while occassinsaly indulging in imaginative plots and descriptions , marks the beginning of the American novel depicting real people speaking in local dialects living in realistic ,not aristocratic , settings.