Finding a Critical Voice builds on skills developed in ENGL 1080 Reading the Past, and is designed to give students further tools for analyzing and engaging with primary and secondary materials in an increasingly persuasive and sophisticated manner. Through examination of primary texts along with related secondary readings, the course emphasizes the importance of the central skill worked on in ENGL 1080, close reading. To that skill, we add others: historicization, theorization and the interpretation of criticism that–along with close reading–help build complex arguments about literary materials.