As a further introduction to the Southern Gothic , we discussed the meaning of William Faulkner's oft-cited quote" The past is never dead. It's not even past." I noted the genre's focus on inherited sin ,such as murder,rape, and slavery, and discussed how Harper Lee's novel is not quite as bleak as Faulkner's and other Southern Gothic authors. We then turned to the opening pages of the novel, and Nina pointed out the pervasive elements of the Southern Gothic even in the opening pages noting references to slaves and the Civil War. I provided some historical background to clarify some of the author's references to The Battle of Hastings(1066) and Herbert Hoover and the Great Depression. During the second segment of the session, we worked on revising Nina's draft of her essay on Poe and the Gothic. I demonstrated within the draft how to reorganize a paragraph , to combine sentences, and to connect ideas with connecting words and phrases. Nina then worked on additional revisions .