What is literature?

—writings in prose or verse, especially writings having excellence of form or expression and expressing ideas of permanent or universal interest

"Nothing teaches us better than literature to see, in ethnic and cultural differences, the richness of human patrimony, and to prize those differences as a manifestation of humanity's multi-faceted creativity.  Reading good literature is an experience of pleasure, of course; but it is also an experience of learning what and how we are, in our human integrity and our human imperfection, with our actions, our dreams, and our ghosts, alone and in relationships that link us to others, in our public image and in the secret recesses of our consciousness."excerpt from the excellent essay "Why Literature?" by Mario Vargas Llosa
    Doña Aida, con su permiso.  Dona Aida, with your permission.

    I am not a Dominican writer.  I have no business writing in a language that I can speak but have not studied deeply enough to craft.  I can't ride its wild horses.  Just the subjunctive would throw me off.  I know the tender mouth of English, just how to work the reins.  I've taken lessons from Emily Dickinson and Walt Whitman and Toni Morrison and William Carlos Williams, whose Mami was Puerto Rican.  And though I have read Pablo Neruda and César de Vallejo and Julia de Burgos and Ana Lydia Vega and Aida Cartagena Portalatín, I can only admire what they do in Spanish.  I cannot emulate their wonderful mastery of that language. --excerpt from the essay "Doña Aida, with Your Permission" by Julia Alvarez

Historical Documents (essential to the national psyche)

The Bill of Rights
    ratified in 1791

The Declaration of Independence
    by Thomas Jefferson, 1776

Constitution, Preamble & Article 1
    signed and sent to Congress September 17, 1787
    by June 21, 1788, approved in nine states

Poetry

A Psalm of Life
    by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807-1882) American Poet

I, Too, Sing America
    by Langston Hughes

Song for a Dark Girl
    by Langston Hughes (1902 - 1967) American poet and writer, important figure in the Harlem Renaissance

I had no time to Hate--
    by Emily Dickinson (1830-1886, American lyric poet)

One’s-Self I Sing
    by Walt Whitman (1819-1892, American poet and essayist)

Immigrants
    by Pat Mora (modern poet, a native of El Paso, Texas)

University Avenue
    by Pat Mora

The New Collosus
    by Emma Lazarus (this sonnet is inscribed on the pedestal of the Statue of Liberty)

Song Lyrics (to music I sometimes use in class)

Golden Feather
    by Robbie Robertson and the Red Road Ensemble, from the CD Music for the Native Americans

Words of Fire, Deeds of Blood
    by Robbie Robertson and the Red Road Ensemble, from the CD Music for the Native Americans

Desperado
    by The Eagles

Take It Easy
    by The Eagles

Summertime Blues
    by The Beach Boys

Supreme Court Decisions (which have influenced education of language minority students in particular)

PLYLER  v. DOE [457 U.S. 202] (1982)
Landmark court case requiring schools districts to provide equal education to children of undocumented alien parents.

LAU v. NICHOLS [414 U.S. 563] (1974)
Landmark court case requiring schools to provide appropriate instruction to language minority students, including native language delivery of content.