I hope that you, who are brilliant, will allow me to take time the next couple of weeks to show you a couple of "moves" that matter in academic writing and in enjoying literature, that may help equip you with a competitive edge.
The game I refer to here is "appreciation" of literature, popularly called "lit crit".

It involves a little PRETENDING:
Whatever we notice, we PRETEND your author does it deliberately, intentionally.
She "overlooks, ignores, rejects, neglects, occludes, hides, masks, delays...
They "allude, alliterate, establish rhythm, character, represent, symbolize.'

What is your white whale?

Reader response means the beginning POINT of ANY valued interpretation INSISTS we begin with a lived-through experience,
Live it.
Envision it (Langer).

Experience it,

Ask yourself - Hmm. Ahab and crew battle a white whale = Ahab's personal battle - which costs people their lives,, the title of the book. What is MY OWN personal battle? What is worth fighting AGAINST, fighting FOR, taking REVENGE for, getting retribution for? What is BETTER, less harmful?
IS the author urging me to STOP killing whales? What ELSE is he urging? Does the author even know himself what his book is about?
Why was he so tortured and "damned" in his own mind for writing the book?

believing game - what happens when you TRUST what the narrator says - entirely? give yourself over to Jane Austen's exaggerations - "I am MORTIFIED!!" Suddenly it become so much FUN to be in the room with these people - they are absolutely convinced of their own importance, so much used to using HYPERBOLE (exaggeration) that it crops up in their speech for the most mundane (boring, day-to-day) occasions. Oh, someone's cousin I have heard of won't be coming after all until next month.
APPALLING!!!
DEADLY!
It will kill me! It wil RUIN the dancing season entirely.

When we BELIEVE the community is SO WRAPPED up in other people's lives, we suddenly feel how it might actually be to have EVERY MOVE of your life scrutinized and talked about. Is there no privacy here?
When I believe Jane Austen's narrator, I may even gain a little empathy for those gossips.
THere are like a whole town under quarantine - sheltering in place. What is there to do but PLAY WORD PUZZLES (fun) talk about the change of WEATHER, argue about MORALITY (someone else's) and HEALTH.
All of a sudden Emma's terrain comes into clear focus.
Try the BELIEVING GAME with a portion of ARCADIA - for instance, REALLY BELIEVE that there ARE COLLEGE STUDENTS and their researcher professors out there looking at evidence and trying desperately to figure out what it means - in medicine, history, philosophy, languages, literature, education, math, science, geology. Can you imagine what it is like to let your passion dictate your research interests? (Not hard, since that is what we try to do in this class) - but here it is demonstrated by Hannah, Bernard. Why do their BELIFS about WILDNESS or ORDER in the universe actually cause them to DISPUTE each other, and actually perhaps STRENGTHEN each other's ARGUMENTS?
How can BELIEFS and passion also connect to your CAREER, your security, your love life?
Why does SEPTIMUS's belief in Thomasina lead him to become the hermit?

RESIST ing and PUSHING BACK against

What allows us to QUESTION Septimus' behavior, Thomasina's "genius", Lord Byron's presence, or Hannah's research?
Notice the beliefs and assumptions they bring to the PRESENT that force them to interpret the PAST.
Which methods and assumptions can we question?
In real life, today, when do you hear researchers and historians drawing conclusions based on their THEORY, rather than THEORIZING based on evidence?

look for the DESIRED object - what a character WANTS - in a musical, it is the I WANT song.
I want to be in the room where it happens.
ALL I WANT is a room somewhere.
THere's a place for us.

Home, change, community,
"SOMEWHERE THAT's GREEN"

GUYS making the video - the I WANT song - what is Septimus"s? Thomasina's? Lady Croom's? Ezra Chater's? Hannah's?
HOW has this author revealed it to us? In drama it can only be three ways - what is said by, said about, and done,
In teh Lord's Supper, Jesus says He has earnestly desired for eating this meal with his brothers. What is THEIR own desire? Today, what does the meal mean

Where is the power? who has it? What accounts for the relationships in this scene? Marx says ALL RELATIONS ARE ECONOMIC RELATIONS.
PROVE him CORRECT in whichever book or poem you are reading.
Look at ARCADIA - using your CRITICAL THEORY cards, define the relations between Septimus, Thomasina, Lady Croom, Mrs Chater, (Lord Byron) - and even Hannah - Bernard - Gus, Chloe, the hermit, Noakes.
Can you do it with AMADEUS?
What makes Mozart willing to sacrifice his health to compose the Requiem? commissioned by a "stranger"?

Ethnicity, race, and underrepresented (minority) voices: these change depending on where and when a book was written.
MOBY DICK is about WHITENESS

What is YOUR white whale?

Whose voices are ABSENT in this dialogue, novel?

When we read the FEDERALIST, what do we DISCOVER when Chinese and African voices are missing? When we read California history, what do we hear when we recall that Spanish Missions as well as Mexican people flourished in the Southwest and along the coast? or native Americans Ohlone?

When we read BELOVED, what does MORRISON mean "It was not story to pass on?"
Chester Himes; HAMILTON, TARTUFFE- what happens to the text when various cultures/ethnicities enact-read?
When I read Raymond Chandler today, some of the scenes of racism in Los Angeles night clubs seem either astutely rendered because Chandler recognized the injustice, or is it that his detective sees but remains aloof from the antagonism and prejudice?

Biblical/archetypal: death-rebirth; journey; scapegoat - Jung, Girard