Reading may seem like an run of the mill thing where you laugh at the funny jokes, glare into the abyss when the text possess a provocative quote. To Mike Bunn the author of “How to Read Like A Writer,” has a different interpretation of what reading should be. Mike Bunn emphasizes that reading should be more than just context, he argues that you need to question the authors’ choice of words, literary devices, sentence placement, in order to be able to become better readers and writers ourselfs. He presents it to the audience in a manner that is very interactive. He begins by explaining what he means to “Read Like a Writer”(Bunn, How to Read Like A Writer), followed by questions that should be asked about the text and writing style, and techniques that should be done to become a more proficient writer.
In the introduction of “How to Read Literature Like a Professor” , Thomas C. Foster focuses on the grammar of literature and the qualities of a professorial reader. He asserts that practise is crucial to learn how to read literature in a more rewarding way. In addition, he defines main elements of the context such as pattern , symbols, and conventions. The purpose of Foster appears to be informing students who is beginning to be introduced to literature. Although Foster’s style is slightly condescending, he utilizes the conventions of literature quite well, and mentions the arbitrariness of these conventions in a sensible way.
In the book How to Read Literature like a Professor by Thomas C. Foster, the first chapter illustrates the elements and ideas of quests in literature. Foster starts off the chapter with a hypothetical story where an average sixteen year old boy named Kip goes to the A&P, a local super market, to buy a loaf of Wonder Bread. Along the way, Kip unpleasantly encounters a German shepherd but meets Karen, the girl of his dreams, laughing with Tony Vauxhall in his ‘68’ Cuba. Kip continues to search for the bread in the store, but he is disturbed by a marine asking him to join the Navy. The story is immediately paused, and Foster analytically explains how Kip’s trip to the A&P was actually a quest.
In “Reading Games”, Karen Rosenberg provides many strategies in order to help college students fully understand and grasp hard academic texts. Rosenberg states that when she was in college she also struggled reading articles that her professors assigned, so she has sufficient experience to educate those in need of advice and guidance. First and foremost, Rosenberg suggests that a reader should consider the writing’s primary audience and its goals for the audience. Once the audience has been established, Rosenberg recommends examining “the role and relationship between the writer, reader, and text” (Paragraph 7), in order to understand the text’s rhetoric. After the reader has established both the audience and the relationship between reader,
In How to Read Literature Like a Professor Thomas C. Foster writes about how to thoroughly read and analyze literature. He focuses on the many different aspects of writing that are used by authors. Despite being a relatively serious and informational subject, Foster is able to use language that is entertaining and more light hearted. He uses many jokes and puns in his book, and even many titles include artistically worded headings that grab the reader's’ attention.
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.
Chapter five of How To Read Literature Like An English Professor is about how Shakespeare is prominent in both old and current works of literature and in the media. Foster states “He’s everywhere, in every literary form you can think of. And he’s never the same: every age and every writer reinvents its own Shakespeare.” (33). So why Shakespeare?
In “Reading and Thought” by Dwight Macdonald, Macdonald raises the idea of reading deeply and how our society has changed its reading style. He points out that our modern society constantly reads irrelevant information in articles, newspapers, or magazines in our daily lives. A term called “functional curiosity” is a person’s interest in being amused, entertained or wanting to know what’s happening around the world. According to Henry Luce, the creator of Time magazine, “Functional Curiosity grows as the number of educated peoples grows.” Macdonald argues that being “functionally curious” is not functional because it does not help the individual function.
Thomas C. Foster’s novel How to Read Like a Professor teaches readers how to deeply analyze literary works to be able to understand deeper meanings in the work, and to be able to predict what will happen later on in the literary work. The Disney film Atlantis: The Lost Empire contains many of the aspects Foster goes over in this first ten chapters, which mostly include quests, referencing well-known literature, weather patterns, and the gathering for meals. According to Foster, a journey is never just a journey. It is a quest to discovering some sort of Holy Grail, whether it be an object, an idea, or self-discovery.
Reading this book feels like having a conversation with an old buddy. It feels like getting insider tips from a wizened old man over beers at a dingy bar. In short, it’s conversational. Of course there are a number of factors that contribute to book’s tone, but the central element is punctuation. No, punctuation is not the sexiest element of writing, but it’s one of the most important.
As a result, I pay more attention to how to affect readers’ feelings and reading experience. For example, I used syntaxes to influence the pace, so I am able to emphasize some of my ideas. I used imperative and tried to
This outlook is reflected in national surveys, the number of literary non-readers in the United States is starting to outweigh the number of readers and, this has slowly been proceeding over the past 20 years (Gioia 421). Reading is a fundamental part of life. It’s a major way of expression, imagination, learning and being the best person
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.
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.
The poem “The White House” written by Claude McKay is a poem about the struggle of McKay. The sonnet was written in the 1920’s about the segregation of America showing the disrespect and trouble McKay went through. This essay will explore the opinion of everybody body should be treated equally as every human has the right to deserve the equal respect because there will be a lot of harm caused to the opposition. This idea has been shown through the use of metaphor, simile, and oxymoron. Overall, this essay will show that the law of segregation has a very negative impact on the general public as humanity was destroyed.
