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Examples Of How To Read Literature Like A Professor

991 Words4 Pages

Ben Price
Mrs. Mary Smith
AP Literature
20 September 2017
How To Read Literature Like a Professor Essay
In the story, How to Read Literature like a Professor, Foster uses many examples to show how deferent types of ligatures can be connected by a common theme, purpose, or other books. In the book he uses examples such as Greek and Roman Mythology, Shakespeare, Fairy tales, and the Bible to show how common their themes are in literature. Foster uses symbols to point out the similarities and connect these books to others.
“He’s everywhere, in every literary form you can think of” (page 34) says Foster about the man himself, Mr. William Shakespeare. Authors throughout literature use his work to tie their characters and story to Shakespeare’s more commonly known writings. …show more content…

These were told and written mainly for kids but have a lasting impact into adult hood. Writers use these tales to appeal to older audiences. They do this to allow the reader to go back to when they were a kid. Writers also write these innuendos to appeal to the readers’ comic side. Like if you hear “Who ya gonna call” you will probably think of ghostbusters. But in a hundred years from now people won’t understand that reference. And the same thing goes for the other way around. If a writer a hundred years ago writes about something of that time period, he could mean it one way but we could interpret it in a completely different way. Authors will also use childhood tales as themes to stories. If there was a character that was being led on a journey then it is referring “Alice in Wonder land”. Or if it’s about a poor person become rich and powerful then it is referring to “Cinderella”. We can see lots of these symbols because the writer needs the reader to be able to relate to the story and its characters, and by making them similar to childhood books, the writer can increase his odds of reaching the readers

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How does How To Read Literature Like A Professor applies to every piece of literature? This novel is written by Thomas Foster and he gives the better understanding on many things, including patterns, symbols, and other literary devices. He helps the reader to gain knowledge on how to recognize each small detail of the story. This novel makes the connection with The Scarlet Letter and makes it easier to comprehend. The Scarlet Letter is written by Nathaniel Hawthorne; this novel is about Hester Prynne, who is a young and beautiful woman and committed adultery with town’s minister, Reverend Dimmesdale.

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By reading “How to Read Literature like a Professor” and “The Kite Runner”, the reader is aided in his or her ability to understand the true meanings behind the text. One is able to decipher how the act of coming together to eat can mean anything from a simple meal with family, to an uncomfortable situation that leads to anger or stress in an individual character. The reader is able to understand the use of rain or other weather in a novel to transform the mood and tone of scene, or understand the cleansing or destructive qualities that weather may have on the overall plot of the story. The use of illness can be transformed, as it can lead to the reader discovering veiled means behind tuberculosis, cholera, a simple cold, or even cancers such

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Foster had also described that, “What the cave symbolizes will be determined to a large extent by how the individual reader engages the text.” Through this Foster had shown the variations of symbolism in a work and the availability of the “symbols to be interpreted in different ways depending on the mindset of the reader. In relation to this concept, Foster had also described the way in which a reader should read the passages through the authors eyes, not their own. Due to the fact that when reading personal emotion and thought, the pieces written by the author may not be interpreted in the way intended to. This leads to the examples used in which a cave in a story is understood in different

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In How to Read Literature like a Professor by Thomas C. Foster, the ideas from chapter 7: “Hansel and Gretel” can be directly related to the novel. This chapter of the novel solely relates to the fairy tale aspects of literature, and how they have been repeatedly re used. In the strange case of Dr. Jekyll and Dr. Hyde, it seems to have a concept of a work that had been created earlier during the Victorian era. The author Thomas Foster says “Literature grows out of other Literature”.

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How to Read Literature Like a Professor for Kids Correlations to Eragon Literature in all forms can be connected with each other. No matter the type, genre, or author all stories have underlying meanings that can be linked with another. These connections can be categorized and applied to all varieties of written composition. In Thomas C. Foster’s book How to Read Literature Like a Professor for Kids, he dictates various aspects that can be found in pieces of literature. There are many instances from Christopher Paolini’s bestselling novel, Eragon, that correlate with Thomas C. Foster’s How to Read Literature Like a Professor for Kids; the most prominent of these occurrences are coincident with chapters fourteen: “Marked for Greatness”, sixteen: “It’s Never Just Heart Disease… and Rarely Just Illness”, and eleven: “Is That a Symbol?”.

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Thomas Foster, a professor at the University of Michigan, taught literature and writing. He was born in West Cornfield, Ohio, and living in such a small town caused him to become very associated with books. In 2003, Foster published a book, How to Read Literature like a Professor, written in second person. The book is written as a guide for readers to know the parts of nonfiction books. It teaches young readers how to include important elements into their stories.

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In How to Read Literature Like a Professor, Thomas C. Foster discusses various literary themes to help the reader more thoroughly understand and analyze pieces of literature. Foster references several literary works to demonstrate the depth added from the implication of the concepts. He writes that many authors use the same tools to shape their writing, therefore “Literature … grows out of other literature”(Foster 24). He also elaborates upon how the context changes the notion the reader receives from a device, such as with different weather or the mood when sharing food. Common literary themes, such as communion and weather, can be applied to “The Interlopers” and “The Scarlet Ibis” to further understand the meaning of these devices within the context of the stories.

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In the book , How to Read Literature Like a Professor written by Thomas C. Foster, he explains that there are five components to a quest, a quester, place to go, stated reason to go, the challenges and trials, and the real reason to go, which Foster explains is always self-knowledge. The initial purpose of the quest is not always completed; instead over time the protagonist runs into numerous challenges that test the very core of their being, reflecting their own thoughts on their life. While reading Speaker for the Dead, by Orson Scott Card, a sci-fi novel, Andrew Wiggin is the original speaker of the dead and Novinha a woman ravaged by her past and secrets, together they have to face the community of Lusitania. He searches to find an inhabitable

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How to Read Literature Like a Professor is a book that shows numerous ways and strategies to understand what their reading. Each chapter shows examples from books and use of literary devices that can help develop the meaning of the story. Think of this book as reading between the lines. In The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald used people to symbolize objects or things to let the reader have an interpretation on the characters. For example, the green light represents Gatsby's future for him and Daisy to be together.

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In Thomas C. Foster's How To Read Literature Like a Professor, he describes the setup of the adventure of the protagonist, dividing it into five parts: Our quester, a place to go, a stated reason to there, challenges and trials, and the real reason to go. A protagonist must experience all of these things in order to accomplish their goals and learn their lessons. In The Secret Life of Bees, Lily Owens, the main character, must encounter these things in order to unlock the mystery of what really happened to her mother the night she was killed, in addition to learning about the passion of writing and telling stories, the dangers and foolishness of racism, and female power. Our quester, Lily, is a fourteen year old girl with a passion for writing.

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Almost every child grows up with the age old moral principle, ‘violence is never the answer’. But is violence occasionally the answer in literature? Violence is one of the most personal and even intimate acts between human beings, but it can also be cultural and societal in it’s implications. In the novel, How to Read Literature Like a Professor, particularly chapter eleven, Thomas C. Foster discusses violence in writing. This can then be connected to acclaimed novel, Lord of the Flies by William Golding.

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In How to Read Literature Like a Professor, Thomas C. Foster teaches readers the meanings behind commonly used symbols, themes, and motifs. Many readers of all ages use this book as a guide to understanding messages and deeper meanings hidden in novels. The deeper literary meanings of various symbols in Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale are explained in How to Read Literature Like a Professor. By using Foster’s book, readers can better understand the symbols in The Handmaid’s Tale.

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Edgar Allan Poe’s use of literary devices to show the how fear of the characters in his stories are both helpful and harmful to them. Poe shows how the fears and obsessions of the narrators in his tales either lead to their inevitable death, or their miraculous survival. Edgar Allan Poe uses many literary devices in his texts, such as symbols, ironies, and figurative language, to show the strange and distorted ways of the characters, and the repercussion of their fears and obsessions. In Poe’s stories, a literary device he uses frequently throughout his stories, are symbols.

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How to Read Literature Like a professor chapter1 In the first chapter of How to Read Literature Like a professor author Thomas C. Foster discusses how almost every story has some type of quest, the title of chapter is “ Every Trip Is a Quest (Except When It’s Not)” he clearly alludes to the fact that the chapter is about the quest aspect of a story and its significance. As the chapter developed Foster began to cover the essentials of a quest and the purpose behind a quest, according to him there are five significant aspects of a quest “(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. He then expands of each of these things.

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Behind each movie lies the meaningful aspects and significant features worth noticing. All movies and books can be carefully examined and interpreted. Thomas C. Foster’s How to Read Literature Like a Professor provides a new view on interpreting literature. In the novel, Foster identifies and analyzes common patterns, themes, and motifs found in literature, many of which are also present in Disney’s film, Maleficent. This movie showcases several of his ideas, including quests, flight, geography, and symbolism.

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