the world of literary life in America. Later, youll return to Klarers (1999) An Introduction to Literary Studies and will reorganize your ideas about the four genres involved in your study of American Literature: poetry, drama, fiction and film. For literary theory manipulation youll read Lois Tysons (2001) Learning for a Diverse World. From it youll take useful concepts of different theoretical orientations. Reader response, psychoanalytic, Marxist, feminist, gay and lesbian, African-American, and postcolonial theories are at your disposal in Tysons work. Robert Eagletones (2000) Doing English: A Guide for Literature Students will help you enlarge your introductory knowledge to literature and its phenomena. David Nunans (1992) book Designing Tasks for the Communicative Classroom will allow you to develop a better understanding of how language skills reading, writing, discussing speaking and listening can be tremendously useful for your literary competence. Finally, three articles of my own will introduce you in the complex interconnectedness of literature and literary competence. Youll start with Language Teachers Seven Competence, go to Elementary Notes on Understanding Literature Classroom, and close with Reading F. Scott Fitzgeralds The Great Gatsby at FURB: Developing Students Literary Competence in the Classroom. Finally, youll select a play, a novel, a collection of poems, and will read them. Youll watch a film too. Writing Tasks. Here, writing tasks tend to become more effective if theyre associated with reading. That is, reading will provide you with the necessary information for you to produce the texts with the literary quality they need. Thus, the first writing task youll develop is your project on American Literature. The project is crucial because it will tell you the way you want to improve literary competence. The project will tell you what writing tasks youll do and how youll do them. For instance, it will tell you that youll will write four papers, and four tests one for each book read and film watched , and a final collection, the activity that is your portfolio, which contains the texts you produced.Discussing Tasks. In the discussion of literary texts critical articles, play, novel, poem, film youll follow the same patterns you had for English Literature. Pedagogical Triangle, with its three aspects involving the four language skills, is the major task. Different from the reading tasks and the writing ones papers which are performed at home and individually, discussing assignments are always done in class, and can be individual, paired, or requires the whole group.Speaking Tasks. Here, the study of English and American Literatures requires the same type of exercise. Oral presentation individual and pair aims at enlarging your literary competence that was triggered by reading, continued with writing, and went on with discussing. Four Oral Presentations one for each book read and movie watched will allow you to show you partners how consistently youre able to deal with literary phenomena. Listening Tasks. Your literary competence associated with American Literature is completed through your ability to deal with listening exercises. Evaluation Sheet aims at giving you the chance to develop personal understanding of literary conventions while dealing with language. Like speaking