Anticipate the text by considering the publisher, the title, the jacket description (if there is one), the jacket cover itself, any subheadings, chapter titles and even the font style. A professor looks at all these aspects when picking up a book for the first time because they reveal clues about the book. These clues also indicate the genre the book will either imitate or depart from. If a book challenges a genre, this adds to its originality and possibly even its quality. If the inside of a book presents exactly what one might expect judging by its cover, the book might not deserve praise.
Read the work of literature thoroughly and actively. A professor takes notes as she reads, in the margins of the text itself or on a separate piece of paper. Professor-quality notes, however, do not center on plot. Rather, a professor notes how the characters, literary devices and narration intertwine to present a compelling, unusual or aesthetically pleasing consideration of a theme. "To Kill a Mockingbird" by Harper Lee, for example, presents a refreshing perspective on racism through the eyes of a naïve child.
Discern the narrator's worldview. The narrator is the mediator between the text and the reader and greatly influences the reader's understanding of the events and characters in the story. If the narrator is also the main character, then this limits the reader's knowledge of other characters' thoughts. In "To Kill a Mockingbird," without taking into account the naivety of the narrator, the reader would assume that the reclusive neighbor Boo Radley is indeed a bogey monster, as the narrator herself believes.
Interpret the text's social, historical and economical assumptions, beliefs and implications. Professors commonly critique texts through a Marxist lens, which would look at the portrayal of class in "To Kill a Mockingbird," or a feminist lens, which might find Scout, the protagonist's, tomboyish behavior an effective challenge of gender norms. The new historicism approach considers the historical influences in a text. So the setting in "Mockingbird," a southern American town during the Great Depression, is important to the book's overall meaning.
Research the text. Read scholarly articles and books on the author, the book itself, themes in the book, books of the same genre and books of the same time period. Learn what other professors are writing about it, how criticism of this book has developed over the years and what the various criticisms' preoccupations suggest about their values.