How to Read Literature Like a Professor

In Thomas Foster’s book, “How to Read Literature Like a Professor,” readers learn how to look past the surface of a literary work to find a deeper or hidden meaning. Writers use devices, such as symbolism, imagery, foreshadowing, irony and allusion to reveal these meanings. If these are overlooked, important aspects of the story can be lost. One literary device that Foster emphasizes in his book is allusion. Every story has elements of another story, and Foster devotes Chapters Four through Seven explaining the meaning of allusion in works by Shakespeare, the Bible, and fairy tales.

How to Read Literature like a Professor, by Thomas C. Foster, is like painting a picture; with painting the first step is to paint inside the lines, but an advanced artist understands that a picture is made up of not just color, texture, and shapes, but also considers the purpose behind each stroke. Foster brings a different meaning to reading a book and draws attention to the author and his or her intention. While applying Fosters teaching's to Paulo Coelho's The Alchemist, the main character, Santiago's journey becomes more than a journey- it turns into a quest. Simple drinks and foods turn symbolic into acts of communion and while

In “How to Read Literature Like a Professor” John Foster describes methods on how to relate texts to each other. He writes about reoccurring character development, relation to Shakespeare, the Bible and any other reoccurring literary devices commonly used in books. The___ Foster states in his book is seen being used in Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle.

The third chapter of How to Read Literature Like a Professor, Thomas C. Foster writes of the recognizable pattern where a “nasty old man, attractive but evil, violates young women, leaves his mark on them, steals their innocence … and leaves them helpless followers in his sin” (Foster 16). In the fourth episode of the fourteenth season of Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, the detectives discover a girl from an accident with a barcode tattoo who was thought to be part of a sex slavery ring. The detectives tried questioning the girl, but she refused to release any details about the slavery. After questioning, she was picked up by an older girl who also had a barcode tattoo. The detectives promised to help the older girl if she would just stay

Chapter 14 of How to Read Literature Like a Professor discusses how to identify and the significance of Christ figures in literature. According to the book, Christ Figures are prevalent in literature for various reasons including putting emphasis on the sacrifice of the character or deepening the plot with the parallel to Christ. This works because Christ is an important feature in our culture. I believe that literature from dominantly Christian areas will contain many figures resembling Christ simply because the religion is ingrained in the culture. Foster lists many of the qualities that help to indicate the presence of a Christ figure. Some of these include wounds on hand and feet, and struggle in the wilderness, a sacrificing character,

How To Read Literature Like a Professor by Thomas C. Foster has definitely made me look back at how I analyzed all the books and other types of literature I’ve read and made me think how less-than-mediocre my analyzing skills were. I never thought that a boy running an errand for his mother could be a quest. When I started reading How to Read Literature Like a Professor, it vaguely reminded me of something I would find on the English tag of Tumblr.

Chapters that connect to Wendy Mass’s novel, The Last Present from Thomas Foster's, How To Read Literature Like a Professor for Kids are “More than just Rain, Snow, or Springtime rain,” “He's Blind for a Reason”, and “It’s Never Just Heart Disease… and Rarely Just a Illness.”

How to Read Literature Like a Professor by Thomas C. Foster is an all-encompassing guide to literature. Thomas C. Foster sets outs to explain how seemingly each detail in a story has some sort of symbolic meaning that may not be easily noticed at first glance. These symbolic meanings can range from the more potent symbolism of the weather to the obscure deeper meaning of a supernatural creature in a story’s plot. As I was reading this book, I was amazed and somewhat taken aback to how much other works of literature are used as examples to validate Foster’s explanations. Well-known novels like Animal Farm, Shakespearean plays such as Hamlet, biblical stories, and Greek myths are referred to. It was immediately apparent that the author was very

How To Read Literature Like a Professor: A Lively and Entertaining Guide to Reading to Between the Lines is a book that showed me many elements of a book previously unbeknownst to me. Some of these concepts were almost perfectly illustrated in One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest. This novel provided perfect illustrations of not only a classic piece of American literature, but of the value of the quest, the importance and variety of symbolism, and the literary value of violence, both in the plot and to the characters, and their very relevant applications within literature of past and present. Foster’s text laid out the framework for the concept of a quest. He stated, “They go because of the stated task, mistakenly believing it is their real mission...

From start to finish, English this year had been unlike any other I had. From start to finish, each and every book had a deeper meaning than I, before, could possibly resolve from the text. The exposure I had to this deeper level of thinking forever changed the way I see literature. Less about “what” than “why”, Literature distinguishes a meaningful story from another. While what makes a book “good” is different for everyone, what makes a story meaningful is what it teaches. Each book I read this year had a story and logic behind it. Every story was real enough to have actually happened because the plot points are supported with real speculation backed up by the nature of humanity. I, personally, have never gone as deep into literature as I have this year, giving me a new appreciation for the genius behind the speculation these books present.

Foster reveals various tropes and archetypes that can be found manifesting within literature. He proclaims that there is no original works in the world of literature, they have all derived from a singular source. Through the duration of How To Read Literature Like A Professor, Foster continues to explain symbolic figures and how they are not always what they seem to be. In chapter four, Foster explains the greatest thing about being an English teacher is the ability recognize repetitive characters and archetypes within literature, like “meeting old friends”. Later in chapter nine, Foster discussed the significance of how location can change a situation drastically and how climate, culture and a ways of adapting play a big role in

Throughout the semester of TE 348, I was able to read many books of various genres, themes, messages and characters. Due to the variety of text I read, I used a range of lenses when engaging with the text in my responses. This has shown me how I tend to react to a text, and what lenses I don’t use as often. Also, I am able to reflect on the advantages and disadvantages that come with engaging with the text with certain lenses. All of this has led to my development of engaging with literature.

With each English class, we skimmed through the most difficult of word searches, hoping to locate the perfect words for our numerous ex-de-texte’s. Not only did we find an economy of words which captured the essence of our thoughts, but we also delved into the word searches of literature, dissecting its themes and characters up, down, forwards, backwards, diagonally . . . you name it. By searching for quotes that revealed the hidden meaning of the author, we discovered the letters and meanings that connect the fictitious literary world with our reality.

While deciphering text can be mundane, studies have shown that “reading has cognitive consequences that extend beyond its immediate task of lifting meaning from a particular passage” (Cunningham 137). Reading not only makes you smarter, but makes you rhetorically analyze things better. The skills that you gain through reading last a lifetime, not just for reading the latest Twilight book. In The Lonely, Good Company of Books, Richard Rodriguez describes himself as a small child looking at reading posters on the wall of his school.

More than ever people from all education levels are finding difficulties when reading any sort of text. Readings have changed drastically in the last few decades, from readings from a book, magazines, articles online or different social medias on the Internet. This new transition in style is believed to be a main cause in an abnormal change in literature (Carr).