2016 Summer Assignment – How to Read Literature Like a Professor
Directions:
1. Respond thoroughly to each prompt, typing your responses to the questions into ONE document. These responses will become your
evidence and argumentative points in the class discussion and debate that follows. You will be most heavily graded on the quality of your
contribution to class discussion and your logical and thorough analysis of literature as expressed in the debates at the beginning of the
school year. To ensure a wide variety of responses, do not share your responses with other students in the class. This is your opportunity to
show me what level of analysis you are capable of. If you find yourself relying on the internet or online help sites like Shmoop or
Sparknotes, go ahead and consider dropping the class. If you are going to make it in this advanced honors course, you will have to think
for yourself from this point forward.
2. Each response should be thorough – I’m purposely NOT giving you a paragraph requirement. As long as you COMPLETELY and
INTELLIGENTLY address the prompt, you’ll be fine. If you give me weak responses, your grade will reflect the level of effort you put
in. Additionally, if you find yourself needing to reference more than four or five films in your responses because you can’t think of a
book, you need to read more. Similarly, if the only books jumping out to you are Harry Potter or Hunger Games, you need to read more.
A lot more. There is a very helpful list of books you might consider reading on page 307 of Foster’s book or feel free to contact me for
suggestions.
3. All of your responses must be typed in 12 point Times New Roman font, the margins should be set at one-half inch on all sides, each
response should be double-spaced, and the chapter number and title should be centered at the top of each page. Each page should have a
header with the student’s last name and page number. Please refer to the MLA formatting template in the Rosary Writing Guide if you
have questions. Although the sample template is actually for essays and longer papers and each of your responses will be both shorter than
an essay and independent from each of the other responses, in-text citations are both appropriate and expected. Remember that you are
analyzing outside texts and synthesizing information. You are inferring more than is said in the texts that you read, and you are
generating new thoughts and discussion. This is the core skill that you will be developing this semester—the ability to understand
more than is said, to make connections that were previously unseen, and to recognizing the weight and power of a well-turned
phrase. You are young, but you are already responsible for affecting and influencing the lives of those around you. You are already a
motivated student; now it’s time for you to be a motivated leader as well.
4. Your assignments are due by Tuesday, August 9th at 11:55 pm to Moodle/turnitin.com. You will also be required to bring a printed copy
with you to class on the first day of school. I sincerely urge you to get going on the assignments early – waiting until the last minute is a
horrible idea . . . really, it’s the worst idea you can possibly have at this point in your academic career. This assignment carries with it a
pretty significant grade, so do your best and get it in on time. Seriously.
5. If you have any questions at all (don’t worry about emailing me; you are not bugging me AT ALL!), email me:
[email protected].
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Writing Assignments for How to Read Literature Like a Professor, by Thomas C. Foster
(Questions and writing prompts shamelessly stolen and gratefully adapted from Donna Anglin)
Introduction: How'd He Do That?
• How do memory, symbol, and pattern affect the reading of literature? How does the recognition of patterns make it easier to read
complicated literature? Has there ever been a time when your appreciation of a literary work was enhanced by understanding symbol or
pattern?
Chapter 1: Every Trip Is a Quest (Except When It's Not)
• Consider the five aspects of a QUEST and then apply them to something you have read. Use the list on pages 3- 5 to structure your
response.
Chapter 2: Nice to Eat with You: Acts of Communion
• Choose a meal scene from a literary work and apply the ideas of Chapter 2.
Chapter 3: Nice to Eat You: Acts of Vampires
• What are the essentials of the Vampire story? Apply this to a literary work you have read. Twilight is obvious and so is Dracula; go
deeper.
Chapter 4: If It's Square, It's a Sonnet
• Just read and enjoy this chapter – no written response required.
Chapter 5: Now, Where Have I Seen Her Before?
• Define intertextuality. Discuss 2-3 examples that have helped you in reading specific novels.
Chapter 6: When in Doubt, It's from Shakespeare
• Discuss a work that you are familiar with that alludes to or reflects Shakespeare. Show how the author uses this connection thematically.
Read pages 44-46 carefully. 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
• Just read and enjoy this chapter – no written response required.
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Chapter 8: Hanseldee and Greteldum
• Think of a work of literature that reflects a fairy tale. Discuss the parallels. Does it create irony or deepen appreciation?
Chapter 9: It's Greek to Me
• Just read and enjoy this chapter – no written response required.
Chapter 10: It's More Than Just Rain or Snow
• Just read and enjoy this chapter – no written response required.
Chapter 11: ...More Than It's Gonna Hurt You: Concerning Violence
• Present examples of the two kinds of violence found in literature. Show how the effects are different.
The Interludes: “Does He Mean That?” (82) and “One Story” (185)
• Essentially, the Interludes deal (in a vague way) with allusion and archetype, but they mostly seem to be a vehicle for the author (Foster)
to introduce and reinforce ideas. Read the first Interlude: do you agree with Foster’s ideas? Disagree? Are you confused? Why? For the
2nd Interlude, “One Story,” focus on archetypes (190-192). Write your own definition of archetype and identify a modern example.
Chapter 12: Is That a Symbol?
• Use the process described on page 106 and investigate a symbolic object in something you’ve read. Be creative, but don’t go overboard.
Chapter 13: 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 to you in the last two years
is political.
Chapter 14: Yes, She's a Christ Figure, Too
• Apply the criteria on page 119 to a major character in a significant literary work or film. Try to choose a character that will have many
matches. This is a particularly apt tool for analyzing film -- for example, Star Wars, Cool Hand Luke, Excalibur, Malcolm X, Braveheart,
Spartacus, Gladiator and Ben-Hur.
Chapter 15: Flights of Fancy
• Select a literary work or film in which flight signifies escape or freedom. Explain in detail.
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Chapter 16: It's All About Sex... and Chapter 17: ...Except the Sex
• OK...the sex chapters. The key idea from these chapters is that "scenes in which sex is coded rather than explicit can work at multiple levels
and sometimes be more intense than literal depictions" (141). In other words, sex is often suggested with much more art and effort than it
is described, and, if the author is doing his job, it reflects and creates theme or character. You do not need to write anything for these two
chapters.
Chapter 18: If She Comes Up, It's Baptism
• Just read and enjoy this chapter – no written response required.
Chapter 19: Geography Matters...
• Discuss at least two different aspects of a specific literary work that Foster would classify under "geography."
Chapter 20: ... So Does Season
• Just read and enjoy this chapter – no written response required.
Chapter 21: Marked for Greatness
•
Just read and enjoy this chapter – no written response required.
Chapter 22: He's Blind for a Reason, You Know
• Just read and enjoy this chapter – no written response required.
Chapter 23: It's Never Just Heart Disease...
• Read “The Story of an Hour” (I’ve included it at the end of this assignment packet). Keeping in mind what Foster says in this chapter,
what is the narrator really saying about Mrs. Mallard?
Chapter 24: ...And Rarely Just Illness
• Recall two characters that died of any kind of disease 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
• Take notes on this chapter (in bullet-form) and be prepared to discuss it when we return. No written response required.
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Chapter 26: Is He Serious? And Other Ironies
• Find an ironic literary work (long or short – poetry is always good for a quick dose of irony) or film (anything by Tim Burton – Edward
Scissorhands, Nightmare Before Christmas, etc. – would be chock full of irony). Explain the “multivocal nature” of the irony in the work.
Chapter 27: A Test Case
This one must be done AT THE END of your reading!
• Read “The Garden Party” by Katherine Mansfield. Complete the exercise on pages 265-266, following the directions exactly. Then
compare your writing with the three examples. How did you do? Write a brief reflection on what you missed and why. After reading the
essay comparing Laura with Persephone, do you understand the story better? Are you confused? What (if anything) does it add to your
appreciation of Mansfield's story?
“The Story of an Hour”
by
Kate Chopin
Knowing that Mrs. Mallard was afflicted with a heart trouble, great care was taken to break to her as gently as possible the news of her husband's
death.
It was her sister Josephine who told her, in broken sentences; veiled hints that revealed in half concealing. Her husband's friend Richards was
there, too, near her. It was he who had been in the newspaper office when intelligence of the railroad disaster was received, with Brently Mallard's
name leading the list of "killed." He had only taken the time to assure himself of its truth by a second telegram, and had hastened to forestall any
less careful, less tender friend in bearing the sad message.
She did not hear the story as many women have heard the same, with a paralyzed inability to accept its significance. She wept at once, with
sudden, wild abandonment, in her sister's arms. When the storm of grief had spent itself she went away to her room alone. She would have no one
follow her.
There stood, facing the open window, a comfortable, roomy armchair. Into this she sank, pressed down by a physical exhaustion that haunted her
body and seemed to reach into her soul.
She could see in the open square before her house the tops of trees that were all aquiver with the new spring life. The delicious breath of rain was
in the air. In the street below a peddler was crying his wares. The notes of a distant song which some one was singing reached her faintly, and
countless sparrows were twittering in the eaves.
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There were patches of blue sky showing here and there through the clouds that had met and piled one above the other in the west facing her
window.
She sat with her head thrown back upon the cushion of the chair, quite motionless, except when a sob came up into her throat and shook her, as a
child who has cried itself to sleep continues to sob in its dreams.
She was young, with a fair, calm face, whose lines bespoke repression and even a certain strength. But now there was a dull stare in her eyes,
whose gaze was fixed away off yonder on one of those patches of blue sky. It was not a glance of reflection, but rather indicated a suspension of
intelligent thought.
There was something coming to her and she was waiting for it, fearfully. What was it? She did not know; it was too subtle and elusive to name.
But she felt it, creeping out of the sky, reaching toward her through the sounds, the scents, the color that filled the air.
Now her bosom rose and fell tumultuously. She was beginning to recognize this thing that was approaching to possess her, and she was striving to
beat it back with her will--as powerless as her two white slender hands would have been. When she abandoned herself a little whispered word
escaped her slightly parted lips. She said it over and over under her breath: "free, free, free!" The vacant stare and the look of terror that had
followed it went from her eyes. They stayed keen and bright. Her pulses beat fast, and the coursing blood warmed and relaxed every inch of her
body.
She did not stop to ask if it were or were not a monstrous joy that held her. A clear and exalted perception enabled her to dismiss the suggestion as
trivial. She knew that she would weep again when she saw the kind, tender hands folded in death; the face that had never looked save with love
upon her, fixed and gray and dead. But she saw beyond that bitter moment a long procession of years to come that would belong to her absolutely.
And she opened and spread her arms out to them in welcome.
There would be no one to live for during those coming years; she would live for herself. There would be no powerful will bending hers in that
blind persistence with which men and women believe they have a right to impose a private will upon a fellow-creature. A kind intention or a cruel
intention made the act seem no less a crime as she looked upon it in that brief moment of illumination.
And yet she had loved him--sometimes. Often she had not. What did it matter! What could love, the unsolved mystery, count for in the face of this
possession of self-assertion which she suddenly recognized as the strongest impulse of her being!
"Free! Body and soul free!" she kept whispering.
Josephine was kneeling before the closed door with her lips to the keyhole, imploring for admission. "Louise, open the door! I beg; open the door-you will make yourself ill. What are you doing, Louise? For heaven's sake open the door."
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"Go away. I am not making myself ill." No; she was drinking in a very elixir of life through that open window.
Her fancy was running riot along those days ahead of her. Spring days, and summer days, and all sorts of days that would be her own. She
breathed a quick prayer that life might be long. It was only yesterday she had thought with a shudder that life might be long.
She arose at length and opened the door to her sister's importunities. There was a feverish triumph in her eyes, and she carried herself unwittingly
like a goddess of Victory. She clasped her sister's waist, and together they descended the stairs. Richards stood waiting for them at the bottom.
Some one was opening the front door with a latchkey. It was Brently Mallard who entered, a little travel-stained, composedly carrying his gripsack
and umbrella. He had been far from the scene of the accident, and did not even know there had been one. He stood amazed at Josephine's piercing
cry; at Richards' quick motion to screen him from the view of his wife.
When the doctors came they said she had died of heart disease--of the joy that kills.
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