MRS.P.L.CLINTON SUMMER READING.2011 A.P.

LITERATURE AND COMPOSITION You will need to get a copy of How to Read Literature Like a College Professor by Thomas C Foster. (Our school library has some of these) THIS BOOK WILL GREATLY HELP YOUR UNDERSTANDING OF TEXTS AND IS OFTEN A MANDATED READING ASSIGNMENT FOR COLLEGE THIS IS A GRADED PROJECT WORTH 104 POINTS INSTRUCTIONS Read the book answering the set questions as you read. These answers MUST BE IN YOUR OWN HANDWRITING.( NOT TYPED) Use separate sheets of paper to answer the questions. Put your name and question set number at the top of the pages. There are questions for each of 26 Chapters. Each set will receive 4 points. DO NOT copy answers from a fellow student as you will both receive zeros YOU MUST HAND IN THIS QUESTION SHEET WITH YOUR ANSWERS Chapter 1 Every Trip is a Quest 1. What are the five essentials of a quest? 2. What is the real reason for a quest? 3. Why do professors think that The Crying of Lot 49 is a terrific little book? 4. Why shouldnt the words never and always be used in literary analysis? Chapter 2 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. Nice to Eat with You What happens whenever people eat and drink together? Breaking bread together is an act of what? How is food a conflict solver? How do we feel when the dinner turns ugly? What author does Foster use to drive home the point of The thing we share is death at the end of the chapter and what is shared at the communion by this author?

Chapter 1. 2. 3. 4. 5.

3 Nice to Eat You: Acts of Vampires Ghosts and vampires are never really about_________ and _____________. What else is vampirism about other than vampires? Vampires were first written about in the Victorian age. Why? Name a nineteenth century author of horror. Who does Foster name as a modern day vampire?

Chapter 4 If Its Square, Its a Sonnet 1. Why predominately study the sonnet? 2. When was the sonnet first written? 3. How does the shape of the square pertain to the sonnet? 4. What does idiosyncratic mean? 5. What does the structure of the poem have to do with the poem itself? Chapter 5 Where Hove I Seen Her Before? 1. Northrop Frye speaks about literature. What does he say and what does he mean? 2. How does literature become like an old friend? 3. Why does Foster talk about OBriens novel? What point is he trying to prove? 4. What is the point of the simile about the eels? 5. What do we do if we dont see all these correspondences? 6. What is the point of the mushroom analogy? Chapter 6 When in Doubt, Its from Shakespeare 1. Name a television shows that used a Shakespeare theme. 2. What makes Shakespeare more memorable than other immortal writers? 3. Why does Shakespeare mean so much to us as readers? 4. Does Foster claim that most people have read Shakespeare? 5. Who does Foster mention as the greatest tragic hero? 6. What does ubiquity mean? Chapter 7 Or the Bible 1. Foster notes that even Pulp Fiction has Biblical references. To what does it refer? 2. What is the connection between Toni Morrisons Song of Solomon (besides the obvious Solomon) and The Bible? 3. Why would a writer use The Bible for a title? 4. What is Beowulf about? Chapter 8 Hanseldee and Greteldum 1. Why NOT use a current film when writing something? 2. What parts of the story would a writer want to choose to borrow? 3. This borrowing creates irony. So what? 4. For the reader, why does this borrowing work? 5. What two pieces of work does the title of this chapter come from?

Chapter 9 Its Greek to Me 1. What is the connection between religion and myth that causes trouble in the classroom? 2. Myth is a body of story that ______________. 3. Why does the story of Icarus still mean something today? 4. Why do we give so much attention to Homer? 5. What is the tone of the author in this chapter? 6. What does exuberance mean? Chapter 10 Its More Than Just Rain or Snow 1. Ever since we crawled up on the land what has the water been trying to do to us? Can you give me an example in modern times? 2. What does rain do for the tone of a story? 3. How can rain as a cleanser backfire? 4. Give an example of how rain restores. 5. What does the rainbow symbolize? 6. What does fog symbolize? 7. What does snow symbolize? Chapter 11 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. More Than Its Gonna Hurt You: Concerning Violence Of what is the story Beloved a representation? What does the death of the boy in Frosts poem Out, Out---really represent? Why do writers kill off characters? What does Foster mean when he states What mysteries generally have in common is a lack of density? Foster says that Lawrences deaths are heavily symbolic. How are these deaths related then to society? With Faulkner the violence is also historically conditioned, how so?

Chapter 12 Is That a Symbol? 1. What is the problem with symbols? 2. What is an allegory? 3 Why does revolution fail according to George Orwell? 4. What variety of tools do we need to figure out what a symbol means? 5. Why does Foster use the cave as an example of the ambiguity of a symbol? 6. State three examples of what the river symbolizes in The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. 7. How can action be symbolic? 8. What do we truly need to listen to to understand symbolism?

Chapter 13 Its All Political 1. What injustice was Dickens really writing about in A Christmas Carol? 2. Why doesnt Foster like political literature? 3. What kind of political writing does Foster love? Why? 4. What political point was Poe making? 5. What were the politics Irving depicted? 6. Why do some writers have to hide their political views in subtlety? Chapter 14 Yes, Shes a Christ Figure Too 1. When reading literature, why is it that we need to know the Christian religion? 2. Of the 18 features listed about Christ, choose the five that you think are the most crucial and write them here. 3. On pages 120 and 121, why are certain words italicized? 4. How do we draw the conclusion that the Christ figure is truly in the piece of literature? 5. Why are there Christ figures? Chapter 15 Flights of Fancy 1. What are some of the ideas that flight could represent? 2. What do the people of the town believe the angel brings in A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings? 3. What happens when the interruption of the flight is not disastrous? 4. What does Stephen learn from the birds in A Portrait of an Artist as a Young Man? 5. What does xenophobia mean? 6. What trumps everything? What does trump mean? Chapter 16 Its All About Sex 1. What should we blame on Freud? 2. How far back does the idea of sexual symbolism stem? 3. What did the Hayes Code (c. 1935-65) say? 4. What is the sexiest scene that DH Lawrence ever wrote about? 5. Why is coded sex a better literary device? Chapter 17 Except Sex 1. Why didnt writers write about sex in the Victorian Age? 2. What was Hemingway restricted from using? 3. What happened to Joyces writing? 4. Moreover, the sex that occurs is invariably tied up with something else What is it? 5. OBrien use sex in her books, for what reason?

Chapter 18 If She Comes Up, Its Baptism 1. What are the three symbolic meanings of falling into the water? 2. Explain: One cannot step into the same river twice. 3. What does Foster believe is the point of Henry Js drowning? 4. How is falling into the water a baptism? 5. What is the only way in which a baptism will work? 6. How is Mabel reborn? Chapter 19 Geography Matters 1. Why does the actual geography of a place matter in a story? 2. Use a quotewhat does Foster say about humans and geography? 3. How does Poe scare us without using the house in The Fall of the House of Usher? 4. Three stories are mentioned showing that character development comes with geographic changes. How so? 5. How does DH Lawrence use geography as a metaphor? Chapter 20 So Does Season 1. In life, what does the winter represent? 2. Why does Henry James give Daisy Miller her name? Frederic Winterbourne his? 3. What does spring represent? 4. Summer? 5. Fall? 6. What can the harvest represent? Chapter 21 Marked for Greatness 1. What does it mean when people have physical marks or imperfections? 2. What did the people of Shakespeares time believe about physical deformity? 3. Why was Oedipus called Oedipus? 4. What does the wasteland myth concern itself with? 5. What do Durells characters collectively represent? Chapter 22 Hes blind for a Reason, You Know 1. Why does Oedipus blind himself? 2. Why is blindness important when it is in a story? 3. What does caveat mean? 4. What is Fosters Indiana Jones principal? Chapter 23 Its Never Just Heart Disease 1. What is a cuckold? 2. How does Foster describe heart disease in terms of literature? 3. Of what is the heart symbolic since ancient times? 4. What suitable emblem does the heart provide? 5. Why would a writer use a heart attack as opposed to say alcoholism?

Chapter 24 And Rarely Just Illness 1. Define simony. 2. What is one of Joyces great themes? 3. Why is/was disease superstitious? 4. What are the four principles concerning disease and literature? 5. For what is the plague a metaphor? 6. If the disease is inherited from a parent, what does this symbolize? 7. What about AIDS? (page 222) 8. What could fever represent? 9. Why cant fever be used by writers in modern day? Chapter 25 Dont Read With Your Eyes 1. Explain both the religious and the social significance of the party the old ladies have. 2. What is Baldwins point in his 1957 story Sonny Blues? 3. Define verisimilitude. 4. What does Foster mean when he says, Dont read with your eyes.? 5. How can we read with the eyes of a Greek and understand Achilles? 6. What is a concubine? 7. Do we need to accept the values of the time we are reading in? Explain Fosters reasoning. 8. How does Foster use Pound as an example? Chapter 26 Is He Serious? And Other Ironies 1. Who is the poet of stasis? 2. What does stasis mean? 3. What does the road represent in Waiting for Godot? 4. How is the ending of A Farewell To Arms ironic? 5. Give two of the examples Foster gives of irony on page 238 6. Explain the irony in Wildes phrase her hair has gone quite gold from grief 7. How is Leonard Basts death ironic? 7. What does Foster believe that Burgess is really trying to tell us about good and evil? 8. What trumps everything? And what does this mean?