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How to Succeed in Your Literature Class
    Good morning everyone, our topic today is about how to do well in your literature class in your college days. College literature classes often shock people with little or no experience of analyzing literature closely. First year students and those pre-med students just fulfilling their lone literature requirement generally find themselves uncertain of how to approach the assigned readings, class discussions, and papers. The seemingly intimidating classes may further terrify students if language skills are not their strong points.
    (1) Literature courses and assignments tend to be extremely different from those of any other discipline because of their extreme subjectivity. This aspect is what many people tend to find most surprising and challenging in an academic setting.
    (2) I am not saying that you can throw reason and fact out of the window in literature courses, but you are given much more intellectual freedom with your personal thoughts and ideas. And that is a feature that catches those accustomed to regimented rules and precise answers in experiments and problem sets slightly off guard. The most important pieces of advice I can offer those considering taking a literature course is to be ready and willing to read everything questioningly, closely, and in advance.
    (3) Let’s begin with the "in advance" piece of wisdom. Literature professors hate when their students have not done the assigned reading. They assigned it for a reason, so have it finished when you get to class. For large lectures students often think it is not that important to do the readings since they will not be forced to speak up and offer opinions. This is completely wrong. Why attend a lecture on a piece of writing that the professor assumes you have read? You will take nothing away from the lecture and will not be able to make any sense of whatever notes you take, even if you read the material after the fact. (4) Also professors tend to be plot spoilers, so if you are taking a class in which you are reading novels, if you do not want to find out who dies or gets arrested or falls in love or any other possible endings, I would highly recommend reading the book before class.
    (5) In small classes that have lots of open discussion, professors can always tell who has and who has not done the week’s reading. Don’t think it won’t affect your participation grade for the course. Also (6) if you are a particularly shy individual who doesn’t often speak up in class anyway, you will be even less likely to participate if you have no idea what the discussion is about. Come to class with your reading finished and you will certainly think of some way to contribute to the class dialogue. (7) The entire point of a literature class is to engross a student in the general aspects of important books, to explore many subtle differences of how stories are crafted, (8) and to train the college scholar to read and digest huge amounts of information. You won’t do well in the course without making a sincere attempt to read and understand every assigned text.
    Next, make sure you read all material very closely. (9) Do not skim through seemingly unimportant passages of long novels, or read Spark Notes and think you know what happens in the reading. (10) These methods of "reading" leave you without any idea of the author’s style or deeper intentions; they merely give you plot or surface meanings. Reading things halfway will be of no benefit to you when it is time to write your papers.
    (11) Literature professors usually want papers that are very sharply focused and detailed. Often they will assign topics that include one of the phrases "pick one sentence from the novel" , or "choose a short passage" , or "discuss a single metaphor". These exercises in close reading force students to unpack every word within their chosen section of the text and discuss many different possible meanings and implications. This is where a literature student’s freedom in thinking is clearly exhibited. (12) There is no single answer or interpretation to most pieces of literature, but students must be able to read closely enough to defend a case with textual evidence that will support their personal interpretation.
     (13) Finally, do not feel defeated if you find a piece of evidence in the text that seems to contradict the line of thinking you had developed about the piece of literature. Literature papers and discussions should question every theory by offering counterevidence. As I previously said, clear-cut answers do not exist in any form of literature, be it poetry, fiction, essays, or even nonfiction. (14) You must read all genres with a discerning eye, and instead of avoiding possible conflicts in your papers, use them to show that you have fully thought through your arguments. Think of ways that they can fit in and support, or simply acknowledge that something seems unexplainable to your uncertainty is acceptable in literature courses; after all, you generally do not have access to the author’s personal thoughts. Just be sure that even your uncertainty delves into possible interpretations of a work, sentence, or word.
    Literature discussions and papers do not need to provide answers per say, but they must be thought provoking. So unpack single words, look up meanings and histories, analyze sentence structures for potential purposes, and never stop questioning your thoughts.
    (15) And the last piece of advice I have to offer: look at the reading lists of literature courses you are considering so you do not make yourself miserable by spending a semester reading literature you have no interest in. Literature courses should be enjoyable, and their readings stimulating, so find one that interests you and begin analyzing everything!
    OK, today I’ve given several tips to you regarding the ways of succeeding in your literature class. I hope they could help you get your hands on the class when you are ready to go. Thank you for listening.