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Five Habits For Reading Effectively and How I Will Use Them as a Teacher: Thank You Thomas Foster

         Thomas Foster’s “How to Read Literature Like a Professor” should be read by every freshman English major. I am a bit disgruntled that I was not exposed to this book early on in my English studies at my previous university because this book would have helped immensely in every single English class I have ever taken. As a senior reading this book, I already knew many of the things he was talking about, making me have “I knew it!” moments. This does not mean I learned nothing new from this book; Foster’s insights and habits on reading have helped formulate the way I am going to teach English.

           Intertextuality is a point that Foster writes heavily on; that is, that all literary texts share some sort of connection. I agree with this greatly and reading about intertextuality has drawn me to the philosophical theory of monism, and more thoroughly, existential monism. This theory asserts that there is only one thing: the universe or God. It is written in Acts 17:28 that “For in him we live and move and have our being.” Although I am deviating a bit from Foster’s book, I think this verse helps highlight that we are truly all connected through God and intertextuality goes hand-in-hand with monism. Foster himself asserts that “there’s only one story” (193). When I teach English, I will emphasize to my students that they should be looking out for common themes present across different books. If a student makes even a very loose connection to a literary text we are reading and another piece of literature, film, music, or other form of media, I will feel like an accomplished teacher.

               The recognition of symbols in literature is a habit or reading strategy that readers will pick up after reading Foster’s book. To Foster, practically anything in a book can and is a symbol for something. Diseases and illness, sex, weather, and even the simple act of eating together: these things are employed in literature to symbolize something. I find Foster’s passage about rain as a symbol particularly profound, telling of how it can a plot device but also be a symbol for cleansing and restoration. On the restorative powers of rain, Foster states “this is chiefly because of its association with spring, but Noah once again comes into play here. Rain can bring the world back to life, to new growth, to the return of the green world” (72).

               How can rain be a symbol for two things though? Doesn’t this create some sort of contradiction or paradox? The answer is yes, and this leads to another main point that Foster brings up: realizing when irony is present in literature. Foster points out the similarities between Alex, the protagonist from “A Clockwork Orange” to Jesus Christ. Pointing out the similarities between Jesus’ and Alex’s story, Foster says “In this regard, and only in this one, is Alex a modern version of Christ. Those other aspects are a bit of ironic window dressing the author embeds in his text as cues for how to understand Alex’s story and the message he unwittingly conveys” (260). To Foster, there is only one concrete way that Alex is representative of Jesus; all the other ways that Alex might be like Jesus is a simple case of irony.

               Another habit that Foster tells his readers about is remembering the text you just read in a book. Foster discusses how our memory of what we have read in a book will enhance our further reading of it. If we recognize a symbol present in a book, we are remembering it from something else we read. When connecting a text to another a text, we are again using our memory to create these ideas.

               At the very end of the book, Foster mentions philosopher and literary critic Roland Barthes’ famous idea of “death of the author.” This idea expresses the fact that all authorial intent is unimportant, a sentiment I have held dearly since I first heard of it as a college sophomore. The phrase gets its name from the fact that we cannot ask dead authors such as Shakespeare or Marlowe the reason behind their stories and the fact that all authors will die eventually. Foster asserts that everyone reads books in their own unique way. In his final piece of advice to his readers, Foster asserts “Own the books you read… you need to take ownership of your reading. It’s yours. It’s special” (301). Above all else, as a future English teacher, this is my greatest takeaway from the book. I want all my students to speak on what a book means to them, less an analysis of what the author might have meant by writing it. Even if a reader’s interpretation of a book is completely different than what the author intended, that is fine with me. I want my students to connect with the book personally and emotionally. That comes first. Authorial intent will likely be the last thing I discuss when talking about books.

             In the preface, Foster talks about the greatness of high school students, telling about how they wrongly get a bad rep. In my experience in working with high school students, I have seen some of the most inquisitive and smart kids and from my own memories of being in high school, the only place I’d rather be than an English classroom was the band room, two rooms where creativity is imperative. I loved reading about the humanity present in classic literature we read in high school such as “To Kill a Mockingbird” and “1984.” Reading Foster’s “How to Read Literature Like a Professor” showed me how I will use intertextuality, irony, symbolism, memory, and death of the author to teach English. From reading this book, I know that I am better equipped to be an English teacher. To my future students: you will never have an English class better than mine. I promise you that.

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Weekly Reflection #6

               This week in my ENGL150 Gateway to English Studies course, we spent a vast majority of the time discussing the middle part of “Frankenstein” by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley. Compared to the lighthearted and humorous book that we previously read for our class, Mark Twain’s “The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn,” Shelley’s “Frankenstein” is a much darker and morbid tale that makes the reader  question many aspects of the human condition and life itself.

               A main theme that permeated our discussions in the literature circle was our disappointment and disgust with Victor Frankenstein. Despite being the titular character, Victor to me is much more of an antagonist than a protagonist at this point in the story. He has created “the monster” that has gone on to murder two of his own family members and instead of admitting his guilt in these events, Victor sits by Justine’s trial and lets her be condemned by the courts. I asked my group if anyone felt bad for Victor after all that he has gone through to which everyone replied that they did not. One of my group members stated that he had it coming to him as soon as he started to experiment in alchemy against the better judgment of his peers. Ultimately though, I believe Victor should have never played God by trying to create life. By trying to create life from death, Victor is altering the natural path that God and nature follow.

               I brought up to my group how much more I liked “the monster” more than Victor. I told my group how it actually saddened me to have to refer to it as “the monster,” because although he is grotesque in appearance with dead and decaying skin, the monster seems to be more rational than Victor, even though he did murder William, Victor’s younger brother. The monster speaks in such an eloquent manner and despite Victor constantly denying him a female companion, the monster continually presses Victor that he must create this companion. Every time Victor tells the monster to “begone,” the monster has a carefully worded rebuttal as to why Victor needs to help him. The monster is smart; he read all of Milton’s Paradise Lost and along with this intelligence, he had developed a sense of empathy towards humans, helping the family he watched by gathering wood for them. In this sense, he was no monster, only a creature longing for love. It was sad to hear the monster describing the first time he saw love, when two of the people he was watching engaged each other. He described what he felt as a mixture of cold and hunger, but it was obvious to me what he was really feeling is butterflies in his stomach, the first time one really feels love.

               “Frankenstein” has gained more relevance in the 21st century with the rise of technology and the future of quantum computers, also referred to as artificial intelligence (A.I.). There is a theory that has been represented in popular media such as “Avengers: Age of Ultron” that if these computers are advanced enough to be able to think by themselves similarly to how humans do, than these computers might view humans as a threat and try to eliminate us. Victor tried to birth intelligence into his creation, and that led his creation to kill, albeit as a result of isolation. Although “Frankenstein” is a work of fiction, this comparison to artificial intelligence is valid. I’m excited to read the rest of this book because it has been very riveting so far. I hope the monster finds peace.

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Midsemester Reflection

     As of now, I am halfway through my Gateway to English Studies course here at Bethel University. Although I am fairly well along in my degree, taking this course that is meant for students entering English classes has been very beneficial and enjoyable. From the first class when we talked about what it means to be an English major and the general traits that comes with one, I had a fire lit under me that enthused my passion for studying English once again.

     The greatest takeaway from the semester so far has been working with my peers in the literature circles. We have been discussing Mark Twains “The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn” and now we are beginning to discuss Mary Shelley’s “Frankenstein.” One of the things I have learned the most from this experience is just how to talk about novels in depth. My classmates have been great to work with because they always give their honest opinions on the novels we read. Hearing what they think about the novels has been helpful in comprehending the concepts presented in the classics we have read. As a future high school English teacher, I will definitely be using these literature circles in my classroom. This is not the first time I have encountered literature circles; however, the structure and roles that are present in our literature circles are very helpful in creating a deep conversation of the novel.

     One of my main teaching philosophies is that broken or nonexistent relationships can be healed or developed through literature and that we can take perspectives that are not our own through literature. I realized this myself when I was able to feel the pain of Tom Robinson and the African American community present in “To Kill a Mockingbird.” Ever since I read that American classic, my desire to be an English teacher was cemented in my mind. Similar sentiments on literature are expressed in “How to Read Literature Like a Professor,” a book I have been enjoying because of its ability to tie all sorts of literature together and explain many of the key concepts and universality of these pieces of literature.

     I am proud of my essay I wrote for the class. I explained how Huckleberry Finn changed his perception on who his friend Jim was because he was able to break down the previous biases he had against slaves through all the experiences him and Jim shared. If there is one thing I do need to work on in the course, it is my revision techniques. Sometimes I get a little overconfident on my first drafts and think that I need not revise deeply, but I’ve realized this is something that is far from the truth. Although I do write good first drafts, I know that if I improve my revision skills, I will be writing even better than I already am. If there is another thing, I could do to improve my work in the class, I could get started making my webpage for Google soon and publish all my works from the class on it. I have completed all my reflections, but I could post more to our Great Sentences blog because I think I have written a few great sentences I have not yet posted. I am looking forward to completing this course and learning as much as I possibly can from it.

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Weekly Reflection #2

The last class session of Gateway to English Studies offered us students to discuss the first few chapters of our books “Building Great Sentences” and “How to Read Literature Like a Professor.” It was interesting to hear the different ways my fellow classmates perceived and interpreted the readings.

In my formative years as a writer, I aspired to write like my favorite authors. I wanted to write in such descriptive detail like J.K. Rowling did in the Harry Potter series, and by modeling her, I began to develop myself more creatively as a writer. Even though my writing was really nothing close to the masterful way J.K. Rowling used the pen and still is far from where I want it to be, I realized that simply trying to write impressively was helping me become a better writer. This is expressed in Brooks Landon’s “Building Great Sentences,” beginning on Page 14 where he expresses that if one simply tries to impress the reader when writing, then that piece of writing will likely be effective. Of course, there are guidelines and do’s and do-not’s to this, such as writer’s should focus on conveying meaning rather than just expressing themselves. It was reassuring to see a technique I use in my writing was presented in a book about writing.

I loved discussing the topic of familiarity in stories. This was presented in “How to Read Literature Like a Professor.” Thinking back on the stories I wrote when I was in 4th and 5th grade, they were all largely based on the pieces of media and literature that were my favorites, and they were all dealing with another topic we discussed in class that was made famous by Joseph Campbell: the hero’s journey. Star Wars is probably the most popular hero’s journey in any piece of media. Luke Skywalker leaves his home planet to save Princess Leia, but the story is largely about Luke Skywalker finding and unlocking the knowledge of the Jedi as well as redeeming his father Darth Vader. The space battles and explosions in the movies are second to the emotional resonance that we feel as an audience when we see Luke Skywalker complete his hero journey that was set out for him in the first film.

We connect with the hero journey because they are uplifting and powerful. Similarly, to how we discussed taking different perceptions through literature, when we read hero’s journey stories, we like to view ourselves as the hero, or at least having traits of the hero. Hero’s journeys can also show us exemplary character traits that we can model for our own behavior. Conversely, many times in the hero’s journey, the hero might misstep and falter, showing us that even the greatest of us make mistakes, something that is an innately human trait.