The most common reason people avoid reading is that they feel intimidated by it. You know what I mean: you’re at the bookstore, and you look over at the shelves of novels, plays, poetry, and other works of literature, and all of a sudden your brain starts to hurt. How on earth do you even begin making sense of all those books?

The idea of reading literature like a professor is a pretty intimidating one. It’s easy to feel that you’re not smart enough to do it, or maybe you don’t even know where to start. But if you can get past these feelings, the payoff will be huge: You’ll start seeing literature in a whole new way—and that means you’ll never look at books the same way again.

Reading literature is one of the most fulfilling and enjoyable activities you can engage in. It’s a great way to unwind after a long day, as well as advance your knowledge of the world around you.

Literature is a powerful art form. It can bring us to tears, make us laugh until we cry, and even inspire us to change the world around us.

I’ve been teaching literature courses for a while now, and I have learned some things that go beyond the classroom. My goal with this article is to help you understand how to approach reading literature like a professor—with more than just your eyes.

Literature is a mirror of life, society, and the human condition. It’s also a mirror of the human experience and spirit. And when you look at it that way, it becomes clear that literature can be used to understand more than just words on paper.

Notes on Professor

You can think of Professor as a person who teaches at a college or university. The title Professor is an academic rank and title, usually associated with professoriate in academia, meaning those holding positions at the rank of professor or above. This word also refers to an honorific title for a respected member of academia, often high-ranking administrators such as deans or presidents of universities and colleges.

In academia and education generally, this title typically indicates that they have earned tenure (the right to remain in their position without having to reapply for it), which means they cannot be fired from their jobs because they don’t agree with their employer’s rules about how things should be done.

Even outside academia, however, “Professor” carries connotations of someone who knows what he or she is doing—a kind of authority figure whose knowledge deserves respect.

Literature as Life

In literature, the world is reflected in a way that allows you to better understand it and yourself. Literature doesn’t just tell a story; it forces you to think about your own life and how you fit into the world around you.

So when we talk about reading literature like a professor, we’re not just referring to an academic setting—though there are certainly plenty of professors who read literature this way! We’re talking about reading any piece of writing with a critical eye toward understanding its deeper meaning, which can be applied to both classic works as well as modern stories.

Asking yourself questions like “What does this mean?” or “How does this relate to me?” will help connect what’s happening on the page with experiences from your life outside of reading it. You’ll be able to see how these stories reflect real experiences from across time periods and cultures, giving them more depth than just entertaining tales told by someone else’s imagination alone (which is still amazing!).

Look for Pattern

Looking for patterns is an easy way to break down the text and gain insight into it. You can look for:

* Patterns in the structure of the story (plot, setting, or theme)

* Patterns in how characters are presented

* Patterns in language use (narrative voice, word choice)

Literature shows us what our world is like its values, norms, beliefs, and mores; its politics; its fears; its hopes and dreams; its successes and failures—the whole spectrum of life as we know it today (and yesteryear). Under “NOTE”

The note section is a great place to record your own thoughts about the text and what you learned from it. Summarize the main idea in your own words, and if there’s anything that really stood out for you, underline or highlight it. If there’s something in particular that made sense to you or helped clarify an idea, write down why it connected with you.

Finally, if there was something confusing about a passage, put a question mark next to it; this will help when going over notes with other students during class discussions later on.

Read Between the Lines

Reading between the lines is more than just finding hidden messages in literature. It’s also about looking for themes and patterns, the deeper meanings of characters, and the underlying messages that authors convey. To find these, you’ll need to think like a professor—by reading between the lines!

There are several ways to do this:

* Look for themes and patterns

* Analyze characters

* Examine settings and symbols

Consider the Grand Scheme of Things

Here’s a list of what you should be thinking about as you read:

* Consider the big picture. What is the author trying to say? How does this work fit into the larger context of the world or culture it comes from? What was going on in their lives when they wrote it, and how did those experiences affect their writing?

* Look at an author’s intentions. Why did they write this piece and what do they want us to get out of it? How does it fit into their career as a whole, and where does it fit within that career arc?

The only difference between literature and real life is that in real life we don’t get to choose which experiences we have or how they will affect us—we’re merely along for the ride! Conclusion

So, don’t be afraid to read like a professor! Literature is a wonderful way to open your mind, expand your horizons and become a more well-rounded person. And if you can find a way to use what you learn from literature in your everyday life—great! But don’t stress about it; just enjoy the ride.