How to Read Literature Like a Professor Is He Serious and Other Ironies
In Arthur Conan Doyle's "The Red-Headed League," Sherlock Holmes and Dr. John Watson both observe Jabez Wilson carefully, still their differing interpretations of the same details reveal the departure betwixt a "Good Reader" and a "Bad Reader." Watson can simply depict what he sees; Holmes has the knowledge to interpret what he sees, to depict conclusions, and to solve the mystery.
Understanding literature demand no longer exist a mystery -- Thomas Foster's book will help transform you from a naive, sometimes dislocated Watson to an insightful, literary Holmes. Professors and other informed readers see symbols, archetypes, and patterns because those things are at that place -- if you have learned to look for them. As Foster says, you acquire to recognize the literary conventions the "same way you lot get to Carnegie Hall. Exercise." (xiv).
How to Read Literature Like a Professor:
A Lively and Entertaining Guide to Reading Between the Lines
by Thomas C. Foster Full TEXT 
Too bachelor in a revised second edition, with significant changes. FULL TEXT
Note to teachers: LitCharts has chapter handouts and a Teacher Guide. Harper Collins Teacher Guide presents challenging analytical writing and is correlated with Common Core. PowerPoint version of Marti Nelson's notes (sent to me by an unnamed contributor). Literary Guideposts from Oak Park High Schoolhouse combines notes and questions (by Enoch and Rohlfs). Thomas Foster Meets Kate Chopin requires that students utilise Foster to "The Story of an Hour" (by Rebecca Mooring).
Teachers Pay Teachers offers workheets and quizzes on the book. In particular, AP Lit and More, Gina Kortuem's store materials are adapted for the 2019 CED and could largely stand without the text through the daily Bellringers. Just in time for distance learning, Kortuem has added a Hyperdoc Unit that works in Google Slides, complete with bellringers, lesson principles, awarding, additional data, and a diverse written responses.
Notation to students: These short writing assignments volition let yous practise your literary analysis and they volition help me become to know you and your literary tastes. Whenever I ask for an example from literature, y'all may utilise brusk stories, novels, plays, or films (Yes, film is a literary genre). If your literary repertoire is thin and undeveloped, use the Appendix to jog your retentivity or to select additional works to explore. At the very least, watch some of the "Movies to Read" that are listed on pages 293-294. Delight annotation that your responses should be paragraphs -- not pages!
Fifty-fifty though this is analytical writing, you lot may apply "I" if you deem it important to exercise and so; remember, yet, that well-nigh uses of "I" are just padding. For example, "I think the wolf is the nearly important character in 'Lilliputian Red Ridinghood'" is padded. Every bit you compose each written response, re-phrase the prompt as part of your reply. In other words, I should be able to tell which question yous are answering without referring back to the prompts.
Apropos mechanics, pay special attention to pronouns. Make antecedents clear. Say Foster first; not "he." Remember to capitalize and punctuate titles properly for each genre.
Assignments below are for the first edition. They are re-listed, with advisable additions, for the 2nd edition on its page. You may download a set of Notes (by Marti Nelson) on this book to help yous in your analysis. Likewise a re-create of these assignments (Word or as .PDF) and a Grading Checklist (Word or as .PDF).
Introduction: How'd He Do That?
How do memory, symbol, and design bear upon the reading of literature? How does the recognition of patterns brand information technology easier to read complicated literature? Discuss a time when your appreciation of a literary work was enhanced by agreement symbol or pattern.
Chapter 1 -- Every Trip Is a Quest (Except When Information technology's Not)
List the five aspects of the QUEST and and so utilize them to something you lot have read (or viewed) in the form used on pages 3-5.
Chapter ii -- Prissy to Eat with You lot: Acts of Communion
Choose a meal from a literary work and employ the ideas of Affiliate 2 to this literary delineation.
Chapter 3: --Nice to Consume You: Acts of Vampires
What are the essentials of the Vampire story? Apply this to a literary piece of work you have read or viewed.
Affiliate 4 -- If It's Foursquare, It'southward a Sonnet
Select iii sonnets and show which class they are. Discuss how their content reflects the form. (Submit copies of the sonnets, marked to prove your analysis).
Chapter 5 --At present, Where Have I Seen Her Before?
Define intertextuality. Hash out three examples that have helped y'all in reading specific works.
Chapter six -- When in Uncertainty, It's from Shakespeare...
Discuss a work that you are familiar with that alludes to or reflects Shakespeare. Testify how the writer uses this connection thematically. Read pages 44-46 advisedly. In these pages, Foster shows how Fugard reflects Shakespeare through both plot and theme. In your discussion, focus on theme.
Chapter 7 -- ...Or the Bible
Read "Araby" (available here). Hash out Biblical allusions that Foster does not mention. Look at the example of the "ii great jars." Be artistic and imaginative in these connections.
Chapter 8 -- Hanseldee and Greteldum
Recall of a work of literature (including motion-picture show) that reflects a fairy tale. Discuss the parallels. Does information technology create irony or deepen appreciation?
Chapter 9 -- Information technology's Greek to Me
Write a free poesy verse form derived or inspired by characters or situations from Greek mythology. Be prepared to share your poem with the class. Greek mythology available online.
Chapter 10 -- It's More than Than Merely Rain or Snow
Discuss the importance of weather in a specific literary work, not in terms of plot.
Interlude -- Does He Mean That
Chapter 11 --...More Than It's Gonna Hurt Y'all: Concerning Violence
Present examples of the two kinds of violence found in literature (including flick). Show how the effects are unlike.
Chapter 12 -- Is That a Symbol?
Use the process described on page 106 and investigate the symbolism of the fence in "Araby." (Mangan's sister stands behind it.)
Chapter xiii -- It's All Political
Assume that Foster is right and "it is all political." Use his criteria to show that one of the major works assigned in a previous year is political.
Chapter fourteen -- Yeah, She's a Christ Figure, Too
Apply the criteria on page 119 to a major grapheme in a meaning literary piece of work. Try to choose a graphic symbol that will have many matches. This is a peculiarly apt tool for analyzing moving picture -- for example, Star Wars, Absurd Hand Luke, Excalibur, Malcolm X, Braveheart, Spartacus, Gladiator and Ben-Hur.
Chapter 15 -- Flights of Fancy
Select a literary work in which flying signifies escape or freedom. Explain in particular.
Chapter sixteen -- It's All About Sexual activity...
Chapter 17 -- ...Except the Sex
OK ..the sex chapters. The key idea from this chapter is that "scenes in which sex is coded rather than explicit can work at multiple levels and sometimes exist more intense that literal depictions" (141). In other words, sex is ofttimes suggested with much more fine art and effort than it is described, and, if the author is doing his job, it reflects and creates theme or character. Choose a novel or movie in which sex is suggested, but non described, and hash out how the relationship is suggested and how this implication affects the theme or develops characterization.
Chapter 18 -- If She Comes Up, It'south Baptism
Think of a "baptism scene" from a pregnant literary work. How was the character unlike afterwards the experience? Discuss.
Affiliate 19 -- Geography Matters...
Talk over at least iv different aspects of a specific literary work that Foster would allocate under "geography."
Affiliate 20 -- ...So Does Season
Find a poem that mentions a specific flavour. Then discuss how the poet uses the flavor in a meaningful, traditional, or unusual fashion. (Submit a copy of the poem with your assay.)
Interlude -- One Story
Write your own definition for classic. Then place an archetypal story and apply information technology to a literary work with which y'all are familiar.
Chapter 21 -- Marked for Greatness
Why practise writers give characters in literature deformities? Figure out Harry Potter's scar. If you lot aren't familiar with Harry Potter, select another character with a physical imperfection and clarify its implications for characterization.
Affiliate 22 -- He's Bullheaded for a Reason, You Know
If information technology is difficult to write a story with a blind character, why might an author include one? Explain what Foster
calls the "Indiana Jones Principle".
Chapter 23 -- Information technology's Never Just Centre Illness...
Chapter 24 -- ...And Rarely Simply Illness
Why does Foster consider heart disease the best, most lyrical, most perfectly metaphorical illness? Recall ii characters who died of a illness in a literary work. Consider how these deaths reflect the "principles governing the use of disease in literature" (215-217). Discuss the effectiveness of the death as related to plot, theme, or symbolism.
Chapter 25 -- Don't Read with Your Eyes
After reading Chapter 25, choose a scene or episode from a novel, play or epic written before the twentieth century. Contrast how it could exist viewed by a reader from the twenty-kickoff century with how it might be viewed by a contemporary reader. Focus on specific assumptions that the author makes, assumptions that would not get in in this century.
Chapter 26 -- Is He Serious? And Other Ironies
Select an ironic literary work and explicate the multivocal nature of the irony in the work.
Chapter 27 -- A Examination Case
Read "The Garden Party" by Katherine Mansfield, the short story starting on folio 245. Complete the exercise on pages 265-266, post-obit the directions exactly. Then compare your writing with the three examples. How did you practise? What does the essay that follows comparison Laura with Persephone add to your appreciation of Mansfield's story?
Envoi
Choose a motif non discussed in this book (as the horse reference on page 280) and notation its advent in three or four dissimilar works. What does this thought seem to signify?
Adapted from Assignments originally adult by Donna Anglin. Notes by Marti Nelson.
Source: https://mseffie.com/assignments/professor/professor.html
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