Best Book to Read Before You Go Beyond by DeAnna

Best Book to Read Before You Go Beyond by DeAnna - February 2015 Scholarship Essay

Thomas Foster’s How to Read Literature like a Professor is a book that I have recently read, and one that I would consider to be a book that all high school students should read prior to graduating. It is a very interesting book that is also very insightful, not to mention very easy to read and understand. It gives students a chance to see into and understand what is going on in the minds of professors, which most students think of as an impossible thing to accomplish, but with this book under your belt you can accomplish anything. Understanding the minds of professors is only the beginning of what one will understand after reading this book, for you also will understand stories, movies, books, poems, and even commercials better than ever before. You will be able to notice things that you’ve never noticed before that can make these things take on a whole new meaning.

Anyone that has ever read a book can tell you that some books are just hard to understand or to read in general, like Shakespeare’s pieces, but How to Read Literature like a Professor is one of the easiest books to read and understand that I have ever read. Thomas Foster uses wording that makes sense to the average person, even the average teenager, and explains aspects of reading into things for a deeper meaning in a way that makes sense, and will leave you thinking “why haven’t I ever noticed that before?” He also gives many specific examples to make sure that you can really grasp what he’s trying to get across, putting in so many excerpts from other works that when you finish the book you’ll feel as though you have read a whole shelf of books.

Being a high school student myself I, like any other student, have wondered at times what it is like in the minds of the professors, but after reading this book, their strange antics and impossible questions actually make sense to me. Professors are always asking questions that have never made sense; asking about the colors, the amount of times a word was mentioned, or pointing out a random moment of a story and asking what the author was trying to say through something as dull as a turtle walking across the road. My classmates and I have always been baffled by such questions, for none of that kind of thing has ever seemed important to the story at least through our eyes, but after reading How to Read Literature like a Professor I am really starting to understand. The professors ask about the colors because they help set the mood for the story, the amount of times a word was mentioned can foreshadow and symbolize so many things, and dull and random moments are just symbolic of an overall theme or political aspect. So maybe the teachers aren’t as crazy as we thought.
After you have read this book though, there is something you should know, it does have some side effects. You will never be able to just set down and watch a movie, tv show, or even a commercial like you used to, for you will notice things in them that can reveal what will happen next, who the bad guy is, or how the people behind it want to make you feel. This can be a helpful skill in some situations, it can also be fun to use in order to enrage other watchers, but it can also leave you unsatisfied because you could predict the entire thing. Though this side effect does exist, I still feel as though the book is worth reading because it is better to be able to understand the deeper meanings of things, than to enjoy a few meaningless movies or shows. If you would still like to enjoy movies and shows, there are some out there that your newly found skills will come in handy on, and you can leave those feeling more satisfied than someone who doesn’t have the insight that you have developed.

All high school students have to read books in high school, so why not read something that can improve your understanding of literature and entertainment? How to Read Literature like a Professor is a great book that is easy to read and grasp that will do just that. Reading is something one does in order to learn things that can be useful for the reader, and what could be more useful than learning what is going on in the minds of your professors? The side effects that this book brings on are side effects that can give the things you read and watch more meaning. So if there is one book out there that all high school students should read before graduating it is definitely How to Read Literature like a Professor.