Top 44 How To Read Novels Like A Professor Sparknotes The 187 Top Answers

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Contents

How can I read books like a professor?

How to Read Novels Like a Professor is a lively and entertaining guide to understanding and dissecting novels, making reading more enriching and satisfying. In the follow up to his wildly popular How to Read Literature Like a Professor, Thomas C.

What is a brief summary of how do you read literature like a professor?

1-Sentence-Summary: How To Read Literature Like A Professor shows you how to get more out of your reading, by educating you about the basics of classic literature and how authors use patterns, themes, memory and symbolism in their work to deliver their message to you.

How do you read novels?

As you start reading, identify the main characters, the setting, and the narrator of the story, to help you understand the basics of the novel before moving on to more complex ideas. Then, pay attention to the author’s writing style and think about why the story is being told that way.

How long does it take to read how do you read literature like a professor?

How to Read Literature Like a Professor: A Lively and Entertaining Guide to Reading Between the Lines, Revised Edition. The average reader will spend 5 hours and 36 minutes reading this book at 250 WPM (words per minute).

How do you read literature like a professor in APA?

How to cite “How to read literature like A professor” by Thomas C. Foster
  1. APA. Foster, T. C. (2017). How to read literature like A professor. HarperCollins.
  2. Chicago. Foster, Thomas C. 2017. How to Read Literature like A Professor. …
  3. MLA. Foster, Thomas C. How to Read Literature like A Professor. HarperCollins, 2017.

What point does foster make about the purpose of supporting characters in a story?

The statement “characters are not real people” might seem glaringly obvious. However, Foster emphasizes this point in order to help the reader understand that characters have an instrumental purpose in a role of literature, meaning they exist in order to serve a particular role in the plot, not as an end in themselves.

What does communion mean in literature?

Whenever literary characters share a communal meal together, it is an act of communion. The act of communion is an archetype in literature. Consider writing a meal scene. It is very difficult, because eating is boring and food has been described a million ways before.

What fosters say about violence?

Returning to the question of meaningful versus meaningless violence, Foster argues that the only major literary genre in which violence is “meaningless” are mysteries.

How do you read like a professor for kids?

Foster gives tweens the tools they need to become thoughtful readers. With funny insights and a conversational style, he explains the way writers use symbol, metaphor, characterization, setting, plot, and other key techniques to make a story come to life.

What is the main idea of every trip is a quest?

Every Trip Is A Quest Analysis

Foster, a quest consists of five things; (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. Every quest is educational, in which the quester gains self-knowledge.

How can I understand my novel better?

How to Do It
  1. Read the introduction and reflect. Any nonfiction article or book will have an introductory section that gives an overview of the main points. …
  2. Look at the sub-headings. …
  3. Read the summary and reflect. …
  4. Read the material. …
  5. Take notes. …
  6. Watch for lists. …
  7. Look up words you don’t understand. …
  8. Keep on plugging through.

How do you read deeply?

All are based on the latest research and real-world practice.
  1. Use a hardcopy book. …
  2. Have no digital devices in the room. …
  3. Read with a pen or highlighter. …
  4. Keep a notebook nearby. …
  5. Read for at least 30 minutes. …
  6. Think of deep reading as a muscle: you’ve got to train it. …
  7. Read as much as you can.

How do you read properly?

I summarize below what I think it takes to read with good speed and comprehension.
  1. Read with a purpose.
  2. Skim first.
  3. Get the reading mechanics right.
  4. Be judicious in highlighting and note taking.
  5. Think in pictures.
  6. Rehearse as you go along.
  7. Stay within your attention span and work to increase that span.

How do you encourage people to read books?

Spark a passion for reading: 15 ways to motivate daily reading…
  1. Boost motivation, and you’ll boost reading. …
  2. Read aloud. …
  3. Increase text variety. …
  4. Make time for reading. …
  5. Dispel the “good reader” myth. …
  6. Believe every child will read. …
  7. Keep reading aloud. …
  8. Provide the just-right level of challenge.

How do you read lit like a professor for kids?

In How to Read Literature Like a Professor: For Kids, New York Times bestselling author and professor Thomas C. Foster gives tweens the tools they need to become thoughtful readers.


How to Read Novels like a Professor by Thomas C. Foster Book Review
How to Read Novels like a Professor by Thomas C. Foster Book Review


How to Read Novels Like a Professor, Thomas C. Foster | huffenglish.com

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  • Summary of article content: Articles about How to Read Novels Like a Professor, Thomas C. Foster | huffenglish.com Thomas C. Foster’s excellent book How to Read Literature Like a Professor: A Lively and Entertaining Gue to Reading Between the Lines … …
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2 thoughts on “How to Read Novels Like a Professor Thomas C Foster”

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How to Read Novels Like a Professor: A Jaunty Exploration of the World’s Favorite Literary Form by Thomas C. Foster | Goodreads

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  • Summary of article content: Articles about How to Read Novels Like a Professor: A Jaunty Exploration of the World’s Favorite Literary Form by Thomas C. Foster | Goodreads Thomas C Foster does it again with “How To Read Novels Like a Professor.” Foster explores the tropes relevant to novels and how novelists use them. Foster … …
  • Most searched keywords: Whether you are looking for How to Read Novels Like a Professor: A Jaunty Exploration of the World’s Favorite Literary Form by Thomas C. Foster | Goodreads Thomas C Foster does it again with “How To Read Novels Like a Professor.” Foster explores the tropes relevant to novels and how novelists use them. Foster … Read 289 reviews from the world’s largest community
    for readers. Of all the literary forms, the novel is arguably the most discussed . . . and fretted over…
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How to Read Novels Like a Professor: A Jaunty Exploration of the World's Favorite Literary Form by Thomas C. Foster | Goodreads
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How to Read Novels Like a Professor – Thomas C. Foster

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A Jaunty Exploration of the World’s Favorite Literary Form

A Jaunty Exploration of the World’s Favorite Literary Form

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How To Read Literature Like A Professor | Audio Book Part 1 | Thomas C. Foster – YouTube

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How To Read Literature Like A Professor | Audio Book Part 1 | Thomas C. Foster - YouTube
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How to Read a Novel: 14 Steps (with Pictures) – wikiHow

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  • Most searched keywords: Whether you are looking for How to Read a Novel: 14 Steps (with Pictures) – wikiHow Updating Enjoying novels is not always easy. Reading requires you to put effort into the novel otherwise you end up lost, bored, and confused. The best novels, however, always reward you for the effort, showing off a depth and power that you might…
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How to Read Literature Like a Professor by Thomas C. Foster Plot Summary | LitCharts

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How To Read Novels Like a Professor by michelle p

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How To Read Novels Like a Professor by michelle p

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    For me, it’s never been possible to truly enjoy any piece of writing without looking into a little deeper. Good critical analysis also requires …
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How to Read Literature Like a Professor Summary | GradeSaver

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A Review of Thomas C. Foster’s How to Read Novels Like a Professor (by Bethany) | Postcards From Purgatory

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    A Review of Thomas C. Foster’s How to Read Novels Like a Professor (by Bethany) | Postcards From Purgatory how to read literature like a professor cover image … a basic high school course in literary analysis, including some eye-rollers like the … …
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    A Review of Thomas C. Foster’s How to Read Novels Like a Professor (by Bethany) | Postcards From Purgatory how to read literature like a professor cover image … a basic high school course in literary analysis, including some eye-rollers like the … Even a bookblogger needs a refresher course sometimes. I’ve found Thomas C. Foster’s books How to Read Literature Like a Professor and Twenty-Five Novels That Shaped America enormously helpful in my work as a teacher and as a reader. I read the former in 2007, shortly after I started teaching again after a three-year stint…
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A Review of Thomas C Foster’s How to Read Novels Like a Professor (by Bethany)


A Review of Thomas C. Foster’s How to Read Novels Like a Professor (by Bethany) | Postcards From Purgatory
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How to Read Novels Like a Professor: A Jaunty Exploration of the World’s Favorite Literary Form

I learned a lot from this book. There are just too many insights that I gained from this that I will have a textbook of my own if I try to list them down and put my own thoughts. It’s just that it will not sell because I am not Thomas C. Foster who has been teaching literature and writing at University of Michigan-Flint. My writing is lame compared to his lively conversational style and the number of novels that I’ve read, especially classics, is not as many as those he has read. Not to mention

1. Reading is a joint effort between the writer and the reader. Both have expectations that are defined on the first page of the book. A book is nothing without its reader. The reader brings with him, when he reads, his own life experiences to the exercise. Oftentimes, these life experiences contribute to the flavor of the book. Flavor, like food, that will determine whether the reader likes the book or not.

2. There is no such a thing as original story. There is only one story and all the rest are inspired by the previous works. Nobody can claim originality. So, I should stop saying that this and that writer or book is not original.

3. If a writer wants to win a Nobel Prize for Literature, he has to write something with political or historical theme. Of course, it goes without saying that the writer should be good.

1) Third Party Omniscient or simply Omniscient – “Godlike” – very popular during the 19th century

2) Third Person Limited – outsider to the action; one sided view of the action

3) Third Person Objective – limited view much like the same as us in our everyday living

4) Stream of Consciousness – extractor that goes into characters’ heads to pull out their narration of their existence. There is a big chapter on this that I had to read twice because I thought I knew the meaning of this prior to reading this book. However, after my first reading, I developed a headache and got confused. Now I know that this is about “getting to the character’s thought without any mediator or filtering.” I thought that stream-of-consciousness is always first person but it can be, and in most cases, third person narration.

5) Second Person – very rare

6) First Person Central – main character makes his own excuses. Huck Finn or David Copperfield for example.

7) First Person Secondary – sidekick

I learned a lot from this book. There are just too many insights that I gained from this that I will have a textbook of my own if I try to list them down and put my own thoughts. It’s just that it will not sell because I am notwho has been teaching literature and writing at University of Michigan-Flint. My writing is lame compared to his lively conversational style and the number of novels that I’ve read, especially classics, is not as many as those he has read. Not to mention of course, that I read mine not how a professor would read but as a mere reader. This later point is obvious. In this book, he cited many examples to the extent that this book seems to be a book list of those that he enjoyed and hence recommends to his students or in this case, readers. When he discussed those books, of course he mentioned spoilers. Fortunately, I did not care. Two reasons: I read maybe half of the books that he mentioned or made references to and for those I have not read, it perked up my interest to read them. Examples of these are John Fowles’(1969) andThomas Hardy. He used both of these books as examples in most of the chapters and topics that I had this urge while reading of stopping and switch to them. That’s how much interesting this book was.Thank God I’ve read the other books already(1954),(1978),(1962) andWhat I’m trying to say is that if you have not been reading lots of these classic works, I suggest that you don’t read this book yet. It might spoil your fun. But if you generally don’t care about spoilers, i.e., because you can instead focus on the writing and not on the plot (like me), then go and give this book a chance.I made lots of notes while reading this book. That’s why it took me awhile to finish this. But if I have to list down the 3 main points that I learned, here are they:In line with the first realization above, a good novel gives its readers the eighteen things or “beauties” on their first page:1)– short or long sentences, simple or complex, rushed or leisurely. Think Hemingway and his short declarative sentences.2)– (how the voice sound) elegiac, matter-of-fact, ironic. Think of Jane Austen and “It is a truth universally acknowledged that a man in possession of fortune must be in search of a wife.”3)– (how it feels about what’s its telling) – regret, guilt, anger of the narrator like Nick Carraway in The Great Gatsby.4)– what kinds of words does the novel use: common or rare, friendly or challenging, whole or fractured, on purpose or accidental. Think of Anthony Burgess’s5)– who relative to the story and its characters. Think of Italo Calvino’sthat uses the rare 2nd person narration.6)– the other who: disembodied or possessed by a personage, inside or outside the story. Think of Henry Hemingway’swith its first person narrator Fredrik Henry.7)– narrator’s feeling about the people and action in the novel. Austen’s narrators: generally amused, slightly aloof, a little superior compared to Dicken’s tend to be earnest, involved, direct (if third-person); naïve, earnest, involved, direct (if first person).8)– contemporaneously or a long time ago. Think of Garcia Marquez’s magical opening saying “many years later.” It says, first of all, that this novel will cover a great deal of time, enough for a small child holding his father’s hand to rise to power and fall from it. But it also says something else magical: “once upon a time.” This is a kind of fairy tale, it says, about an exotic place and time, neither of which exists anymore (nowhere can be that backward, he hints), that were special in their own time. Any novelist who isn’t jealous about those three words alone isn’t very serious craft. (p.28-29).9)– fast or slow, told in or near the now of the story or long after. Think Julian Barnes’swhen the old protagonist recalled the time when he was young narrated in the first part of the book.10)– more than mere setting. Place is a sense of things, a mode of thought, a way of seeing.11)– stuff that happens again and again. Rain in Hemingway’s. Flowers in Woolf’s. Miracles and the colonel’s narrow escape in Garcia Marquez’s. It can be an image, action, language pattern, anything that happens again and again.12)– it is about, well, aboutness. Story is what gets a novel going and what we focus on, but theme is one that makes the reading worthwhile. It is the idea content of the novel.13)– verbal, dramatic, comic, situational.14)– prose and narrative. It is related to diction but diction has to do with the words a writer uses, rhythm with how they’re deployed in sentences.15)– fast or slow.16)– what the writer is expecting from the reader. George Eliot: time and patience. Thomas Pynchon: hip and savvy who’s unafraid of the wacky and unconventional. Wodehouse: relaxed, jaunty companion.17)– protagonist means “first agent.”18)– how the novelist wants to be read.In relation to narrator, I also learned its different types:So, how to read a novel like a professor? Pay attention to the 18 beauties above and the narrative style. They are not everything I learned from this book yet (so don’t you think that those are spoilers and suggest that I click the spoiler tag) but I guess knowing these will make me go a long way already. I mean, I’d like to share them with you so you don’t need to click the link just to show them up. This book is an essay and an earlier comment says that this feels like a textbook. I say, it feels like a lecture what with a conversational style of Foster’s writing.I don’t care. I really liked this. In fact, I wish I had a literature professor like Foster when I was in college!

How to Read Novels Like a Professor

About the Book

How to Read Novels Like a Professor is a lively and entertaining guide to understanding and dissecting novels, making reading more enriching and satisfying. In the follow up to his wildly popular How to Read Literature Like a Professor, Thomas C. Foster provides students with tried-and-true techniques to use in analyzing some of the most important works in literary history. How to Read Novels Like a Professor shows readers how to consider and a novel’s historical fine points as well as major themes, literary models (the Bible, Shakespeare, Greek mythology, and fairy tales), and narrative devices like irony, plot, and symbol.

Critical Praise

“By bringing his eminent scholarship to bear in doses measured for the common reader or occasional student, Professor Foster has done us all a generous turn. The trained eye, the tuned ear, the intellect possesed of simple cyphers brings the literary arts alive.”-Thomas Lynch, author of The Undertaking

“By bringing his eminent scholarship to bear in doses measured for the common reader or occasional student, Professor Foster has done us all a generous turn. The trained eye, the tuned ear, the intellect possesed of simple cyphers brings the literary arts alive.” — Thomas Lynch, author of The Undertaking

“A smart, accessible, and thoroughly satisfying examination of what it means to read a work of literature. Guess what? It isn’t all that hard, not when you have a knowledgeable guide to show the way. Dante had his Virgil; for everyone else, there is Thomas Foster.” — Nicholas A. Basbanes, author of A Gentle Madness, Patience & Fortitude, and Among the Gently Mad

Product Details

How To Read Literature Like A Professor Summary

1-Sentence-Summary: How To Read Literature Like A Professor shows you how to get more out of your reading, by educating you about the basics of classic literature and how authors use patterns, themes, memory and symbolism in their work to deliver their message to you.

Read in: 5 minutes

Favorite quote from the author:

Audio Summary Listen to the audio of this summary with a free reading.fm account*:

I randomly came across How To Read Literature Like A Professor, and found out it was really popular. I’d love to help you read more and better, and my gears are constantly churning how I can help you do that (hit me up if you want to hear my product ideas so far). Summarizing this book is surely a good start.

Thomas C. Foster is an English professor (surprise), and he uses many examples from classic books to show you how you can unlock what you read and figure out what lies beneath the basic level of the story. This book will not only make your reading more fun and more satisfying, you’ll also be able to harness what your learn in a much more professional way.

Here are 3 lessons to help you master the craft of reading:

Memory, symbols, and patterns are what hide the deeper message in any book. One of the most common patterns is the quest structure. Look for universal messages in books to discover which symbols authors use.

Want to read literature like a professor? Let’s take a literature trip!

If you want to save this summary for later, download the free PDF and read it whenever you want. Download PDF

Lesson 1: Most books hide their message using memory, symbols and patterns.

The majority of people falls into the category of shallow readers. When they read books, they only pay attention to the basic story level, but not much more. If you want to go beyond that and actually interpret what you’re reading, Foster says there are three things you need to watch out for.

Memory. This has happened to you for sure. You’ve read a chapter in a book and thought: “Wait, don’t I know this scenario? Haven’t I read about this before?” Clever readers don’t brush off that gut reaction. Instead, they dwell on it and draw an actual comparison between what they just read and how it’s different from a similar book they’ve read in the past. Symbols. The scar on Harry Potter’s forehead is much more than just a scar. Its shape, the way it hurts, the visions he has because of it. It stands for much more than an accident, it’s a symbol, and only if you can interpret it you’ll get the full picture of the story. Patterns. Sometimes trivial and seemingly meaningless details pop up again and again. Just like the story itself most often follows a pattern, so do certain characters, items and even words people use. Authors often use patterns to communicate hidden messages.

But spotting these and interpreting them correctly is hard, so let’s look at two things you can do to improve.

Lesson 2: The quest structure is one of the most common patterns in literature.

One of the most universally applied structures in novels, which you can find anywhere in life (even in your latest trip to the grocery store), is the quest structure. It’s sometimes also called the hero’s journey and it always contains the five following things:

A quester

A destination

A stated reason to go

Some challenges along the way

An unexpected revelation

Take The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho, for example. Santiago, a shepherd, is the quester. His destination are the pyramids of Egypt. He says his reason to go is that he must find his destiny and explore the vision from his dream (about a treasure in Egypt). Of course he faces many challenges on his journey, such as finding love, but having to leave it behind. At the end, there’s an unexpected revelation, showing Santiago that the treasure was right in front of him all along.

But if you run out of bread, and it becomes your reason to go to the grocery store, a destination, you become a quester too. A challenge might be to find a parking spot, or arrive at the store before it closes. Eventually, you’ll unexpectedly find you still have a loaf at home after you come back.

See, it has all the elements of a quest, even though it’s a very trivial scenario. Now you can pay attention and find the quest structure in other books and events!

Lesson 3: Look for universal messages in books to discover which symbols authors use.

Do you sometimes feel like books are a rip-off? That they’re just blatantly copying from another author? Well, actually it’s tough to find a book that doesn’t copy from a previous one. In truth, no book is 100% original, whether the author knows he or she is copying, or not.

This phenomenon is called intertextuality – all texts depend on one another – and it’s a good thing! When the same ideas appear again and again it turns them into symbols. You can then rely on interpreting them correctly, because the same symbol usually stands for the same idea.

For example, whenever a storm is seen on the horizon, this is usually a symbol for trouble lying ahead, whether in the form of an actual storm or a plot twist.

Often, the hero’s home is destroyed, and he or she has to start all over. This is usually meant to show that even in destruction, there is a liberating power.

Ask “What’s the universal message behind this event?” as you read, and you’ll be able to spot symbols and some of the big ideas, which have been around for centuries.

Note: Another thing that helps you develop this skill is reading a wide variety of books, especially classics, because these have popularized most of the symbols we use today.

How To Read Literature Like A Professor Review

I want more of this. More reading about reading. If reading a lot is good, then reading a lot about reading is great. Every tiny improvement you make in how you read will be with you for the rest of your life and therefore help you get more out of every next book you pick up.

This is highly recommended. How To Read Literature Like A Professor is a great book and the summary on Blinkist is a very good starting point, with most of the big ideas explained well and plenty of examples.

Read full summary on Blinkist

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Learn more about the author

What else can you learn from the blinks?

Which questions help you get to the emotional level of a book

What one book all other books connect to

How the Mississippi river is a symbol for more than one thing, in just one book

Why settings profoundly shape how we perceive a story (and what role seasons play in it)

What makes irony one of the most powerful tools of an author

Who would I recommend the How To Read Literature Like A Professor summary to?

The 16 year old, who struggles with English class, the 44 year old, who wants to get more out of his reading for his job, and anyone who’s read their favorite book more than once.

So you have finished reading the how to read novels like a professor sparknotes topic article, if you find this article useful, please share it. Thank you very much. See more: how to read novels like a professor chapter summaries, how to read literature like a professor quizlet, how to read literature like a professor chapters, how to read literature like a professor goodreads, how to read literature like a professor religion, how to read literature like a professor summary notes, how to read literature like a professor chapter 5 summary, how to read literature like a professor chapter 9 summary

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