Blog Response to Prompt #5

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? 

Foster’s outlook on reading is more complex than just simply scanning a page as you can tell after reading even a small bit of his book. Reading is a process of communication between the author’s ideas and the reader’s interpretation of them. The process of reading is something that cannot be generalized for one type of person.  Some people pick up on symbolism while others interpret the author’s intent completely differently; this concept allows reading to become personal and individualized.  Some concepts he explains in his book that will remain significant to me as I continue on in my reading journey would be his emphasis on how analyzing literature takes lots and lots of practice.  Throughout his book he develops this concept that there is depth to everything we read, sometimes we may not even understand it. No matter if we understand the reference or not we can understand and appreciate the intent. This book about books is about learning how to practice techniques to improve your deeper reading skills. The whole purpose of this book is to give you the tips and instruction on what to look for when reading but it doesn’t matter if you don’t out these methods into practice. As I go into AP Lit this year I will try my best to practice Foster’s methodology when it comes to analyzing literature.  I will take with me his concepts of how stories are all intertwining with one another even if the writer intends for it to be this way or not. Foster’s book has taught me many lessons on how to develop my analyzing skills and I learned a lot from his many examples of texts working within on another.