This book is a collection of classroom-tested ideas for helping students explore how literature and "the canon" are made, what the term "American" means, and how the phrase "American literature" obscures the presence of multiple "literatures" that are both individually compelling and mutually enriching. Each section begins with an introductory essay. Following an introduction, the essays in Part 1, "A Gathering of Flowers: Making American Literature Anthologies," (A. R. Gere) are: (1) "What Students Need To Know about the Canon" (G. M. Seaman); (2) "Invitation To Anthologize" (M. Dyer); (3) "Anthologia" (L. Templeton); (4) "Making Literature with the Anthology" (T. Murnen); and (5) "A Case Study of American Literature Anthologies and Their Role in the Making of American Literature" (D. Winter). Essays in Part 2, "Learning about American Literature from Students and Learning about Students from American Literature" (P. Shaheen) are: (6) "The Puritans Have Nothing To Do with My Life" (K.K. Shuell); (7) "Students, American Identities, and Whiteness" (A.M Harvey); (8) "Students, Narrative, Historical Longing: The Stories We (Americans) Tell about Ourselves" (D. Anthony); and (9) "'The Education of Little Tree': A Real True Story" (P. Shaheen). Essays in Part 3, "Location, Location, Location" (S. Robbins) are: (10) "Popular Culture in the American Literature Class" (E. Martin); (11) "Making American Literatures in Middle School" (L. Schiller); (12) "Literature of Place and Place in Literature: Orienting Our Maps" (J. White); and (13) "The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly: Technology in the Classroom" (P. Shaheen). Essays in Part 4, "New Lives for Old Texts: Literary Pairings" (P. Shaheen) are: (14) "Looking for the Other Side: Pairing 'Gatsby' and 'Passing'" (R. Teague and C. C. O'Brien); (15) "Pairing William Faulkner's 'Light in August' and Art Spiegelman's 'Maus'" (B. Brown); (16) "Foreign Voices, American Texts: Translations" (A. Braun and T. Cummings); and (17) "Dorothea Lange to 'The Boss': Versions of 'The Grapes of Wrath'" (A. R. Gere). Essays in Part 5, "Professional Learning; or, What Happens When Teachers Ask, 'What Happens When...?'" (J. Wells) are: (18) "When It Doesn't All Go Smoothly" (J. Buehler); and (19) "Ex Libris: Graduate Student Collaborations with High School Teachers" (J. Wells and M. D. Sowder). An "Afterword: Where Do We Go from Here? Future Work for Making American Literatures" (S. Robbins) is attached. (NKA)