I have to take an american literature class and i know nothing about it lol
Well you have a lot to pick from. American literature is literature written or produced in the United States
Oh Ok any famous authors I should get started with?
Mark Twain is very good.  Before the founding of the United States, the British colonies on the eastern coast of the present-day United States were heavily influenced by English literature
Ok I have heard of him who else would you suggest?
Franklin, Alexander Hamilton, and Thomas Paine. Thomas Jefferson's United States Declaration of Independence solidified his status as a key American writer. It was in the late 18th and early 19th centuries that the nation's first novels were published. An early example is William Hill Brown's "The Power of Sympathy" published in 1791. Brown's novel depicts a tragic love story between siblings who fall in love without knowing they are related. 
With an increasing desire to produce uniquely American literature and culture, a number of key
, the first national copyright law was passed in 1790 and provided a copyright protection for 14 years, but only for authors who were citizens or residents of the United States. In order to get copyright protection in the rest of the world American authors were required to gain residency in the country in which they desired copyright protection. For example, Mark Twain obtained residency in Canada to protect his publication of "The Prince and the Pauper".
To protect foreign literature in the United States, British authors would have an American