Mallig Plains Colleges, Inc.

Casili, Mallig, Isabela

The learning material is a property of the College of Teacher Education- Mallig Plains
Colleges, Inc. It aims to improve students’ performance specifically in their
SPECIALIZATION.

Learning Area: Contemporary and Popular Literature

Learning Resource Type: MODULE 3
Instructor: Sheila Mae P. Artates

GENERAL INSTRUCTION/S:

The module will start with an introduction which will give a general background on the
subject. Series of activities and discussions will encourage you to explore and learn about the topic.
Through this module, the following instruction/s should be followed.
 This module is exclusively for MPCI students only.
Submit your activity in the GOOGLE CLASSROOM.

I. COURSE DESCRIPTION:
This course provides pre-service English teachers with opportunities to acquire extensive
reading backgrounds in literature and allied fields needed in the understanding and
evaluation of critical issues in contemporary and popular literature and genres. This course
allows them to demonstrate their research-based content knowledge and its relevance in the
teaching-learning process using various methods of literary analysis.

II. LEARNING OUTCOMES

At the end of the course, the students should be able to:
A. Discuss research-based content knowledge and critical issues on contemporary, popular, and
emergent literature and its relevance in the teaching-learning process;
B. Explain the development of a given genre of popular literature from its beginning to its
contemporary practice through a historical timeline; and
C. Use various methods of literary analysis, such as formal, psychological, and/or feminist
analysis in writing a response paper

III. COURSE CONTENT

IV. ISSUES AND CHALLENGES IN CONTEMPORARY LITERATURE
V. INTRODUCTION TO POPULAR LITERATURE
1. Nature
2. Function

PREPARED BY: SHEILA MAE P. ARTATES 1

IV. LEARNING EXPERIENCES
ISSUES AND CHALLENGES IN CONTEMPORARY LITERATURE
The second Global War in the 1940’s created an enormous impact on all areas of human
life, including literature. Although every country of the western world was affected by war,
the specific nature of the impact varied from country to country.
World War II brought about radical changes in political and social structures. After a
short period of transition, communist regimes were established and literature was called upon
to activate the people’s class consciousness. The leaders of the new “people’s republics”
were often either writers who had taken refuge in the Soviet Union during the war or those
who had been active in the underground.
From 1945 to 1950, the common literary themes were the following: experiences of war,
persecution, underground activity and massive destruction. This retrospection was soon
followed by a forward-looking mood (optimism) particularly in those countries that had
undergone major social changes after war.
Alongside the literary experiment was the appearance of a new political and social
concern among young people, prompted by international power politics, the civil wars in
Asia, the emergence of third world and the rise in large western countries of reactionary and
progressive ideas. A big number of young writers regarded social problem as their primary
concern.
INTRODUCTION TO POPULAR LITERATURE
Popular literature includes those writings intended for the masses and those that find
favor with large audiences. It can be distinguished from artistic literature in that it is designed
primarily to entertain. Popular literature, unlike high literature, generally does not seek a high
degree of formal beauty or subtlety and is not intended to endure.
The growth of popular literature has paralleled the spread of literacy through education
and has been facilitated by technological developments in printing. With the Industrial
Revolution, works of literature, which were previously produced for consumption by small, well-
educated elites, became accessible to large sections and even majorities of the members of a
population.
William Shakespeare could be thought of as a writer of popular literature, but he is now
regarded as a creator of artistic literature. Indeed, the main, though not invariable, method of
defining a work as belonging to popular literature is whether it is ephemeral, that is, losing its
appeal and significance with the passage of time.
The most important genre in popular literature is and always has been the romance,
extending as it does from the middle Ages to the present. The most common type of romance
describes the obstacles encountered by two people (usually young) engaged in a forbidden love.
Another common genre is that of fantasy, or science fiction. Novels set in the western frontier
of the United States in the 19th century, and called westerns, are also popular.
Finally, the detective story or murder mystery is a widely read form of popular
literature. Popular literature has also come to include such genres as comic books and cartoon
strips.

PREPARED BY: SHEILA MAE P. ARTATES 2

NATURE
Its nature can be defined as an expression of human feelings, thoughts, and ideas whose
medium is language, oral and written. It is not only about human ideas, thoughts, and feelings
but also about experiences of the authors. It can be medium for human to communicate what
they feel, think, experience to the readers.

FUNCTION
1. ENTERTAINMENT FUNCTION - known as “pleasure reading”. In this function, it is used
to entertain its readers. It is consumed for the sake of one’s enjoyment.
2. SOCIAL AND POLITICAL FUNCTION– This shows how society works around them. It
helps the reader “see” the social and political constructs around them and shows the state of the
people and the world around.
3. IDEOLOGICAL FUNCTION – shapes our way of thinking based on the ideas of other
people. It also displays a person’s ideology placed in the text consciously and unconsciously.
4. MORAL FUNCTION – This may impart moral values to its readers. The morals contained in
a literary text, whether good or bad, are absorbed by whoever reads it, thus helps in shaping their
personality.
5. LINGUISTIC FUNCTION – It preserves the language of every civilization from where it
originated. They are also evidences that a certain civilization has existed by recording the
language and preserving it through wide spans of time.
6. CULTURAL FUNCTION – Orients us to the traditions, folklore and the arts of our ethnic
group's heritage. It preserves entire cultures and creates an imprint of the people’s way of living
for others to read, hear, and learn
7. EDUCATIONAL FUNCTION – Teaches us of many things about the human experience. It
is used to portray the facets of life that we see, and those that we would never dream of seeing.
Literature therefore, is a conduct for the chance to experience and feel things where we can learn
things about life.
8. HISTORICAL FUNCTION – Ancient texts, illuminated scripts, stone tablets etc. Keeps a
record of events that happened in the place where they originated.

V. ASSESMENT OF TASKS
TASK 1: List down at least 10 issues and challenges in Contemporary Literature. Explain
each in 2-3 sentences.
TASK 2: Choose one popular literature genres; romance, science fiction, detective story
and fantasy. Then search a literary text in that particular genre and examine them according to its
nature and function.

PREPARED BY: SHEILA MAE P. ARTATES 3

VI. REFERENCES:

Heick, T. (2017) 12 strategies for teaching literature in the 21st century

Kubala, R. (2015). “Philosophy, literature and emotional engagement” (CW).

https://www.britannica.com/art/introtopopular-literature/Popular-literature

PREPARED BY: SHEILA MAE P. ARTATES 4