#5 Prompt Response: After studying Foster, I’ve come to the conclusion that reading is more than just staring at a few bold printed words inside of a book. Foster has made me realize that the process of reading can actually be a much more incredible experience then one might think. At the start of the book, the author immediately made this clear whenever he used the example that by using five key factors, good readers can instantly analyze what is and what might soon occur throughout a story. These factors are significant because they allow the reader to become mentally engaged within the actions and thoughts of the characters. As for the purposes and the underpinnings of books, symbolism is the most important part. It shows that a book does have a meaning even if one might appear to be more clear than another. An example of this is in chapter three whenever Foster discusses how many different authors over the past century have used horror-inspired themes to symbolize that the author, or a book’s character, might have a sort of mental illness, or that they might have something else going on in their life. In terms of being literate and the purpose of reading as a whole, while it is obviously beneficial to the world around us, it can be used for more than just understanding homework assignments, road signs and restaurant menus. It allows a reader the chance to explore their mind and create their own ending to a scenario by being able to analyze and interpret a text in a way that their specific brain interprets it. It also allows them to compare their own real world experiences to one that a character might appear to be going through, so that they can create a hypothesis for their own story ending. This was definitely a beneficial book because it taught me how to explore the many ways of analyzing a book while reading.