How To Read Literature Like A Professor

How to Read Literature Like a Professor is a book Thomas C. Foster uses to expose his thoughts and feelings of many literary terms and devices. Such ideas can be found in James Joyce’s short story, “The Dead”.

One of the first things that this author would do is to teach students how to make connections while reading. When students make personal connections with what they are reading by using their prior knowledge, it helps them to retain information. There are three main types of connections we make while reading text; we can make connections to what we are reading and our own experiences in life, we can make connections from one book to another (like reading a Nancy Drew book and reading a Trixie Belden book), and we can make connections to what we are reading and things that are going on in the world around us. By helping Jose learn to make connections while he reads, Jose will be able to more readily remember what he has read and make sense of it (Comprehension Strategies, n.d.).

Chapter 14 is about how almost everything, in some form, is a Christ figure. The chapter gives a list to relate characters to. The list is 1. crucified, wounds in the hands, feet, side, and head 2. in agony 3. self-sacrificing 4. good with children 5.good with loaves, fishes, water, wine 6. thirty-three years of age when last seen 7. employed as a carpenter 8. known to use humble modes of transportation, feet or donkeys preferred 9. believed to have walked on water 10. often portrayed with arms outstretched 11.

How do memory, symbol, and pattern affect the reading of literature? How does the recognition of patterns make it easier to read complicated literature? Discuss a time when your appreciation of a literary work was enhanced by understanding symbol or pattern.

-We have to carefully compare and contrast all parts of the sonnet in order to see the deeper meaning that all sonnets hold.

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.

Every character that travels down a path, that encounters obstacles on their journey, that makes sacrificial decisions faces each of these components as they undertake a life-altering quest. Often times the hero ventures out to save someone or solve a problem, but in fact, their true journey is a search for self-knowledge. Through every obstacle and road-block along the way, the character discovers more about themselves and their true identity. Though they may have journeyed across great lands to accomplish their mission, the thing they were searching for was inside of them all along; the journey and challenges only helped to reveal their real character. As explained in Thomas C. Foster’s literary criticism, How to Read Literature Like a Professor,

The recognition of patterns makes it much easier to read complicated literature because recognizing patterns will help you relate two or more pieces of literature together, therefore making it easier to understand and analyze the literature you are focused on. Patterns in literature can help the reader understand plots, settings, themes, and other literary elements. I greatly appreciated the novel, Brave New World because of how different the society in the novel was from the one I live in. Using the Signposts from Notice and Note, I was able to see contrast and contradictions that enhanced my understanding of the book. I noticed how I was expecting Bernard, in Brave New World to be just like everybody else in the novel but instead he was a “normal person” that felt normal human emotions, such as the longing for love, that the other characters just did not feel. He also felt isolated and alone. Bernard thinks in a way we were not expecting. Patterns such as this helped me, the reader, to better understand literary elements.

Foster keeps the reader interested in reading. He broadened my horizon on the variety of fantastic novels that the world has to offer. He hints that there are millions of other things to discover about novels, secrets hidden in the code of words, and it is up to the readers to crack it. It was a great way to end a great novel.

-Flight is freedom. When a character has the ability to fly they are free from the burdens of everyday life.

From this point, he concludes that literature is concerned with symbolic action, that literary or mythological characters are typical, and that the world of poet imagery is “totally symbolic” (p. 75). He then moves to the principle of “literature as a whole” (p. 49): “you don’t just read one poem or novel after another, but enter into a complete world of which every work of literature forms a part” (p. 69). Hence there is a progressive element in the study and teaching of literature: as we read more works, we become able to generalize from our experience of literature.

There are five aspects of a quest discussed by Thomas C. Foster in How To Read Literature Like a Professor. They are “(a.) a quester, (b) a place to go, (c) a stated reason to go there, (d) challenges and trials en route, and (e) a real reason to go there” (Foster 3). These five aspects all apply to Charles Dicken’s Great Expectations. The quester is Pip, the place to go is London, the stated reason is for Pip to become a gentleman and be worthy of winning over Estella. The final aspect, a real reason to go there, could be for him to realize that money cannot find happiness, that being too ambitious can blind someone from what is truly important, or to state that Pip was better off as a common boy with good morals and manners.

Like when he is explaining different scientific facts and research, he uses a sort of speech that the everyday reader will understand and by staying away from a scientific writing style the facts are very clear to understand. He also keeps his audience interested through anecdotes and rhetorical questions. Like how he uses, “So, what is the designer to do?” as the general theme throughout the book. Norman developed his paragraphs to purposely make the reader question everyday things and life experiences in general. He then explains why theses things happen, such as why a person would ride a frightening roller coaster. Because his descriptive examples are worded so well, it created unity throughout the whole chapter and makes it easier for the accustomed audience to

He went to college in Emporia, Kanas, and earned a B.S.E. in both foreign language and art. He graduated in 1963, from there he earned a MFA in ceramics from none other than

In the opening chapter of Thomas C. Foster’s book, he explains the importance of a Quest. It is quite hard to figure out a quest, Foster explains that in an example about a young boy who goes to the supermarket and encounters his “nemesis.” Quests are the core base of a story since it involves just about everything a story is trying to portray. For example it includes the quester, a place to go, a stated reason to go there, challenged and trials during the journey, and a real reason to go there. These are all main components in a story. Foster states “The real reason for a quest is always self-knowledge.” He means that the Quest is to help