Analyzing The Semester Of Te 348

Thomas C. Foster in ‘How to Read Literature like a Professor’, references the different literary devices that authors use in literature, in order to enhance the reader’s ability to critically analyze literature from any time period. Foster expands the reader’s understanding of literature by exploring the profound impact of symbols and common themes on literature.

As I was reading How to Read Literature Like a Professor, I was thinking about how much I have missed in the books I have read due to not knowing how to look for certain literary devices. Something as simple as not knowing how to read between the lines caused me to miss out on points the author was trying to make. Over the course of reading How to Read Literature Like a Professor, I have learned many ways to analyze literature that I did not know before.

How to Read Literature Like a Professor: A Lively and Entertaining Guide to Reading Between the Lines by Thomas C. Foster is a book that explains there is more to literature than just a few words on a paper or a few pages in a book. Thomas Foster’s book portrays a relatable message to a wide based audience. This book is relatable for two reasons, the way it is written and the examples it uses. The book is written in a conversational manner, as if the reader was in a group discussion about books and writing. As for the examples, they are informative, descriptive, relative, and entertaining.

Literature is such a beautiful thing because it does not give us an answer to it's questions. There are so many iffy spots that leave us to develop our own thoughts and feelings toward the piece of work. This is an interesting factor because at many times it affects us in a different way and can develop us as an individual. When reading a piece of literature, one person can interpret it in different ways than another person reading the same piece of work. I remember analyzing poems with my English class in the previous years and when we were asked to interpret it, we all had different answers. Sometimes what I got out of the poem didn’t even go close to the direction that my classmate

Literature is an essential part of the center of a person’s life. It provides a certain assurance and “feeds the soul” of one. Whether it be a book, TV, or even an advertisement, literature exists everywhere. A person is able to develop many skills by studying literature, and expand the horizon of their learning. An immeasurable amount of insight and knowledge can be gained from the study of literature which contributes in providing readers with an understanding of the past, and a philosophical assimilation of the moral behind a writing piece.

H1: A student explains and evaluates the effects of different contexts of responders and composers on texts.

The biggest change I noticed taking place in how I used my lenses was how the further we progressed through the semester the more in-depth and detailed my blog entries became. For example, after the first five books that I read, I began to notice in my coding of the artistic lens that my descriptions and analytical thinking of the illustrator’s depictions significantly increased. For example, in book number two, The Blacker the Berry, I stated, “Another great element of this book was the illustrations that helped to add joy and laughter to this great book.” (Petersen, 2016). This description is short, and doesn’t really exemplify what exactly the illustrator did to have myself react with joy and laughter. But, later in the seventh book, Persepolis, my description for the artistic lens was much for in depth and analytical. For example, I detailed, “Her [the author] use of the black, empty space to underline the sadness and worry that Persepolis felt when she discovered Mohsen was murdered was perfectly expressed

Thomas Foster’s How to Read Literature Like a Professor begins with an introduction that provides a framework for the next five chapters. The author explains that any story can fit into a general, archetypical theme, and he spends the first five chapters of his book speaking on these critically prevalent themes.

When a novel is revealing, witty and whimsical it unlocks the hidden truths about literature as discussed in the book How To Read Literature Like a Professor by Thomas Foster. This book is written in second person so the reader can experience Foster’s personality that is directed towards them. A reader is given a fresh and clear perception on literature to understand what is being read. Foster clarifies the way writers uses symbols and themes. He believes by analyzing the deeper meaning in literature will help foster a better reader.

this book was to show the reader how to look at literature through a wide eye. To see

Reading Rhetorically, the second chapter of The Academic Writer by Lisa Ede covered many topics I have studied in the past, but it captured my attention when book often returned to the theme of how reading and writing are such an integral part of our society. There are obvious examples of this such as books, poetry, and magazines but many times the author mentioned how much more of our lives involve reading than what occurs to many people. It fascinated me how we read material from The Count of Monté Cristo and Socrates to Internet blogs and road signs. When we see a word, our minds automatically read it. This became evident to me when I returned from Mexico for the first time after a trip. In Mexico it took work for me to read the Spanish

With content that I considered more serious, I used a critical or literary lens, and with content that I considered less serious, I used an artistic lens, as well as, personal. While reading The Nowhere Box by Sam Zuppardi, I responded with a personal and artistic lens. With an artistic response I said, “The illustrations tied in really well with the text.” With a personal lens, I responded by stating, “I feel like it is something I would have done as a young kid, get in a box and pretend to make it something.” Here, having the context of the book be laid back, funny, and a simple story, my responses are not as deliberate. Responding to Who Was Claude Monet? by Ann Waldron, I responded with both a literary and critical lens. With the literary lens, I stated, “I liked learning about his life as well. I found it interesting that for the longest time Monet struggled financially and with his family. I learned that he was married and he did have children. I learned that his wife died at a young age but he did eventually remarry. I also learned that for the longest time nobody wanted to buy his artwork; a lot of people back then did not like his work. Monet and his family had to move around a lot because they could not afford to stay in a single space.” With a critical lens, I

Within the book the use of illustrations enrich and extend the story, therefore they are relevant to the story. The illustrations give the audience hints as to who the culprit is, and the reasons behind it. There are pages that contain just illustrations, this continues storytelling without use of words. It creates mood that is appropriate for the text, and the illustrations overall combine well with the storyline.

“A book is a device to ignite the imagination”(Alan Bennett). Some authors are able to ignite millions of imaginations with their thought-provoking writing styles. One way they do this is with imagery. Vivid descriptions can make a book enjoyable to read even if the plot is dark and depressing. As well as making the text sound interesting, imagery can provide a better understanding of the themes or characters in the story.

Reader-response theory identifies the reader as an affective agent who imparts real exist-ence and life to the work, completing its meaning through interpretation. Reader- response criti-cism argues that literature should be viewed as art in which each reader creates his or her own-most likely unique, text-related performance. I am using Wolfgang Iser and Stanley Fish’s takes on Reader Response for my study.