After completing this unit, students will have insights into the making of literature that they may not have had previously. They will better understand that writers do not create their work in a vacuum, but instead they rely on posterity to help shape their ideas. By reading texts as part of a larger conversation, as Walker says, students will begin to recognize why it is essential that they too read and know important texts in, and aspects of, literary history. Giving students the tools to understand and appreciate that they too are part of this conversation is not a luxury, but a necessity.