The objective of this course is to provide an understanding and appreciation of historically underrepresented groups via the lens of literature.  In addition to examining traditional issues of race, religion, gender, and sexual orientation, this class will also address current issues of gender identification, socio-economic identification, physical/intellectual exceptionalities, and body image.  As a benefit to education majors, this course will address several PDE competencies that include, but are not limited to, tracing cause and effect relationship, identifying the main purpose of a passage, analyzing two different but related passages, and understanding explicit and implicit meaning of text.