Below you will find the Prompts for the Foster book.  You have also received this document in your gmail.  Please refer to your Pre-Requisite/Summer Reading Assignments Sheet for more details.



AP LITERATURE PRE-REQUISITE READING 2017-18
HOW TO READ LITERATURE LIKE A PROFESSOR—BLOG
 

1.    Foster says that “reading literature is a highly intellectual activity.”  He discusses the “language of reading” and the “grammar of literature.”  What does he mean by these things and why are they important for the kind of reading he is discussing in this book?  How is this kind of reading different from purely “affective” reading?  What is the true value of “reading like a professor” according to Foster?  Be sure to use textual evidence to support your answer.



2.    King Solomon wrote, "There is nothing new under the sun." Foster applies this precept saying that all "writing and telling belong to one big story." What does he mean by this?  How does this idea add to understanding and the richness of the reading experience?  How have you seen this principle in action in your own experience with art in general?



3.    Foster discusses the “dialogue between…texts.”  He refers to this as “intertextuality.”  What is the significance, value, and effect of this textual connection?  How does it inform and enhance our reading experiences?  Is intertextuality intentional or serendipitous?  How does it operate?  How might it relate to the “one big story?”  How might it relate to archetypes, symbols?  When have you noticed intertextuality at work in the “real” world?  What is the “mythic level?”



4.    Foster talks about the relationship between the reader and the writer suggesting that, “reading is an event of the imagination…a reader’s imagination is the act of one creative intelligence engaging another (the writer’s).  How does this occur?  What does this suggest about the nature and process of reading and writing?



5.    After studying Foster, what ideas about the process, the experience, and the purposes of reading seem significant?  What are the philosophical underpinnings of his book about books?  What does it mean to be literate?  What does it mean to read?  How does this relate to “being human?”  What will you carry with you from this book?



6.    Foster talks about the “symbolic level.”  How does this inform the kind of reading professors (and AP Lit. students) do?  How does one work to read in this manner?  What does it require of us as readers?



7.    Where or how does ambiguity come into play in a reader's experience? How might ambiguity work within a piece of literature (or art of any kind?)  How does it impact our understanding, and appreciation of a text?


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