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湖北工业大学

今日读书

How to Read Literature Like a Professor

Thomas C. Fosteris a Professor

from University of Michigan,

Specializing in 20th century British,

Irish and American literature, teaching

classical and contemporary literature

courses,as well as creative writing.

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2021

05·28

原文跟读

How to Read Literature Like a Professor: For Kids

ByThomas C. Foster

Chapter 5: Now Where Have I Seen Him Before?

One of the many great things about being an English teacher is that you get to keep meeting old friends. For beginning readers, though, every story may seem new. Each book feels unconnected to any other book. It’s like one of those pictures where you connect the dots. When I was a kid, I could never see the picture in a connect-the-dots drawing until I’d put in nearly every line. Other kids could look at a page full of dots and say, “Oh, that’s an elephant.” Me, I saw dots.

Part of this is just how good you happen to be at seeing two-dimensional pictures. But a lot of it is practice. The more connect-the-dots drawings you do, the more likely you are to recognize the picture early on. Same with literature. Part of pattern recognition is talent, but a whole lot of it is practice. If you read enough, and think enough about what you read, you’ll begin to see patterns: things that happen again and again.

It may pay to remember this: there’s no such thing as a completely original work of literature.

Once you know that, you can go looking for old friends and asking the question: “Now where have I seen him (or her) before?”

TakeBod,theheroofNeilGaiman’sTheGraveyardBook(2008).Bod is very young, still in diapers, when he’s left an orphan. Accidentally, cheerfully, in fact, he wanders into a haunted graveyard. He’s tooyoung to know that cemeteries, tombstones, and ghosts are supposedto be scary, so he’s not scared. The ghosts see him for what he is—achild who needs a family. They give him one; they take him in. Thegraveyard becomes his home. And the graveyard’s solitary, broodingvampire becomes young Bod’s guardian, carefully keeping him safe against all the perils of the outside world until he’s old enough to face them on his own.

Now, forget all the details about graveyards, ghosts, and vampires, and think of Bod as a type. A very young, orphaned boy, all on his own in a scary and threatening place. A human boy taken in by a group of nonhumans, with a protective and mysterious guardian who is also not human. Have you met him before?

You have if you know Rudyard Kipling’s The Jungle Book (1894), where the human boy Mowgli is raised by wolves and watched over by a black panther. Put an orphan boy who needs a family in the jungle, and you have The Jungle Book. Put him in a graveyard, and you have The Graveyard Book. Even the book’s title is a big clue. Neil Gaiman not only used Kipling’s story on purpose; he wanted readers to know that’s what he was doing.

Which brings us to the big secret: there’s only one story.

单词积累

diaper [dapr]
n. garment consisting of a folded cloth drawn up between the legs and fastened at the waist; worn by infants to catch excrement 尿布
orphan [rfn]
n. a child whose parents are dead 孤儿
haunt [hnt]
vt. A ghost or spirit thathauntsa place or a person regularly appears in the place, or is seen by the person and frightens them.常出没于···
graveyard [ɡrevjɑrd]
n. an area of land, sometimes near a church, where dead people are buried.墓地
cemetery [semteri]
n. an area of land used for burying dead people, especially one that is not beside a church 公墓
tombstone [tumston]
n. a large, flat stone that lies over a grave or stands at one end, that shows the name, age, etc. of the person buried there墓碑
brooding [brud]
adj. used to describe an atmosphere or feeling that makes you feel anxious or slightly afraid 沉思的，徘徊不去的
vampire [vmpar]
n. a dead person who leaves his or her grave at night to suck the blood of living people吸血鬼
guardian [ɡɑrdin]
n. a person who protects sth监护人，守护者
peril [perl]
n. serious danger 危险
panther [pnθr]
n. a blackleopard 黑豹

湖北工业大学

2021

05.28

小试牛刀

Q&A

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“Now where have I seen him before?”which statement best explains the title of this article?

A) There’s no such thing as a completely original work of literature

B) There’s only one story so, you can find the same character in different stories

C) Most literature stories are connected, and the more you read, the more you find similar characters and events in different books.

D) One can find friends by connecting the dots from one book to the other.

The writer feels that The Graveyard Book and The Jungle Book are similar because...

A) Learn how to connect the dots when drawing

B) Practice more, and you will eventually learn how to recognize similar character traits and events in different stories.

C) Read books that have nearly the same title

D) Remember that as you keep reading, you keep meeting similar characters and events

The writer would agree with which of the following statements:

A) Pattern recognition is not an important part of reading

B) Reading novels is difficult because authors copy other authors

C) The more you read, the easier it becomes to interpret literature

D) Reading a novel is like drawing a picture

The writer feels that The Graveyard Book and The Jungle Book are similar because...

A) They have nearly the same title

B) They both focus on a character alone in a place which is typically dangerous

C) They both feature a character who is very protective of the main character

D) All of the above

Final thoughts: Can you think of other books which have the same story?

2021

05·21

上期回顾

参考答案：

1. B 2. C 3. C

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INTRODUCTION

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ArynHill

"Hello, everyone! My name is Aryn, and I am an English instructor at Hubei University of Technology. I am from Akron, Ohio in the United States but I love to travel! I have lived in France, China, Hawaii, and visited many other beautiful places. Well, with all that travel I have also developed a love for languages, including my native language. Let’s work together to practice our oral English and expand our linguistic knowledge through reading!”

湖北工业大学