GRADE 12 – ENGLISH FOR ACADEMIC AND PROFESSIONAL PURPOSES

(WEEK 5)
Q1 – MODULE 2

CRITICAL APPROACHES IN
WRITING A CRITIQUE

WHAT I NEED TO KNOW

Learning Objectives: At the end of the lesson, the learners shall be able to
1. define critique;
2. identify the various approaches writing a critique;
3. criticize the texts using the different approaches of criticism; and
4. apply the appropriate critical approaches in writing your critique.

WHAT'S NEW
ACTIVITY 1. SAY SOMETHING ACTIVITY
Directions: Take a look at this picture and give at least five (5) points that you see in the picture.
Write your answers in your notebook.

Process Questions: Write your answers in your notebook.

1. How did you find the picture?
2. By looking at the picture, are you thinking about the beautiful nature?
3. What about the location?
4. Did it cross to your mind who is responsible of taking care of the nature?
5. What about the feeling of the lady jumping onto the water?
6. Did you ask yourself if you would want to do the same?
7. What about the reasons why God has created this nature for us?
8. Have you not wondered how God created the beautiful world?
All these questions will be answered critically by using different approaches. This activity leads you to
learn how to write criticism.

WHAT IS IT

What is critique?

A critique is a careful analysis of an argument to determine what is said, how well the points
are made, what assumptions underlie the argument, what issues are overlooked, and what
implications are drawn from such observations. It is a systematic, yet personal response and
evaluation of what you read.
It is a genre of academic writing that briefly summarizes and critically evaluates a work or
concept.

Critiques can be used to carefully analyze a variety of works such as:

 Creative works – novels, exhibits, film, images, poetry

 Research – monographs, journal articles, systematic reviews, theories
 Media –  news reports, feature articles

Like an essay, a critique uses a formal, academic writing style and has a clear structure, that
is, an introduction, body and conclusion.   However, the body of a critique includes a summary of the
work and a detailed evaluation.  The purpose of an evaluation is to gauge the usefulness or impact of
a work in a particular field. 

Why do we write critiques?

Writing a critique on a work helps us to develop:

 A knowledge of the work’s subject area or related works.
 An understanding of the work’s purpose, intended audience, development of argument,
structure of evidence or creative style.
 A recognition of the strengths and weaknesses of the work.

How to write a critique?

Before you start writing, it is important to have a thorough understanding of the work that will
be critiqued.

 Study the work under discussion.

 Make notes on key parts of the work.
 Develop an understanding of the main argument or purpose being expressed in the work. 
 Consider how the work relates to a broader issue or context.

Read about the critical approaches. You can highlight some important ideas. You can use
these in expressing your views.

The following are the different approaches in writing a critique:

1. Formalist: This approach regards literature as “a unique form of human knowledge that needs to
be examined on its own terms.” All the elements necessary for understanding the work are contained
within the work itself. Of particular interest to the formalist critic are the elements of form—style,
structure, tone, imagery, etc.—that are found within the text. A primary goal for formalist critics is to
determine how such elements work together with the text’s content to shape its effects upon readers.

Questions to be Asked for Formalistic Approach

A. How is the work’s structure unified?

B. How do various elements of the work reinforce its meaning?
C. What recurring patterns (repeated or related words, images, etc.) can you find?
D. What is the effect of these patterns or motifs?
E. How does repetition reinforce the theme(s)?
F. How does the writer’s diction reveal or reflect the work’s meaning?
G. What is the effect of the plot, and what parts specifically produce that effect?
H. What figures of speech are used? (metaphors, similes, etc.)
I. Note the writer’s use of paradox, irony, symbol, plot, characterization, and style of narration.
J. What effects are produced? Do any of these relate to one another or to the theme?
K. Is there a relationship between the beginning and the end of the story?
 L. What tone and mood are created at various parts of the work?
M. How does the author create tone and mood? What relationship is there between tone and mood
and the effect of the story?
N. How do the various elements interact to create a unified whole?

2. Gender Criticism: This approach “examines how sexual identity influences the creation and
reception of literary works.” Originally an offshoot of feminist movements, gender criticism today
includes a number of approaches, including the so-called “masculinist” approach recently advocated
by poet Robert Bly. The bulk of gender criticism, however, is feminist and takes as a central precept
that the patriarchal attitudes that have dominated western thought have resulted, consciously or
unconsciously, in literature “full of unexamined ‘male-produced’ assumptions.”
3. Feminist criticism attempts to correct this imbalance by analyzing and combatting such attitudes
—by questioning, for example, why none of the characters in Shakespeare’s play Othello ever
challenge the right of a husband to murder a wife accused of adultery. Other goals of feminist critics
include “analyzing how sexual identity influences the reader of a text” and “examining how the images
of men and women in imaginative literature reflect or reject the social forces that have historically kept
the sexes from achieving total equality.”

Feminist Criticism examines images of women and concepts of the feminine in myth and
literature; uses the psychological, archetypal, and sociological approaches; often focuses on female
characters who have been neglected in previous criticism. Feminist critics attempt to correct or
supplement what they regard as a predominantly male-dominated critical perspective.

Questions to be asked for Feministic Approach

A. How are women’s lives portrayed in the work?

B. Is the form and content of the work influenced by the writer’s gender?
C. How do male and female characters relate to one another? Are these relationships sources of
conflict? Are these conflicts resolved?
D. Does the work challenge or affirm traditional views of women?
E. How do the images of women in the story reflect patriarchal social forces that have impeded
women’s efforts to achieve full equality with men?
F. What marital expectations are imposed on the characters? What effect do these expectations
have?
G. What behavioral expectations are imposed on the characters? What effect do these
expectations have?
H. If a female character were male, how would the story be different (and vice versa)?
I. How does the marital status of a character affect her decisions or happiness?

4. Historical: This approach “seeks to understand a literary work by investigating the social, cultural,
and intellectual context that produced it—a context that necessarily includes the artist’s biography
and milieu.” A key goal for historical critics is to understand the effect of a literary work upon its
original readers.

Questions to be Asked for Historical Approach

A. How does it reflect the time in which it was written?

B. How accurately does the story depict the time in which it is set?
C. What literary or historical influences helped to shape the form and content of the work?
D. How does the story reflect the attitudes and beliefs of the time in which it was written or set?
(Consider beliefs and attitudes related to race, religion, politics, gender, society, philosophy,
etc.)
E. What other literary works may have influenced the writer?
F. What historical events or movements might have influenced this writer?
G. How would characters and events in this story have been viewed by the writer’s
contemporaries?
H. Does the story reveal or contradict the prevailing values of the time in which it was written?
Does it provide an opposing view of the period’s prevailing values?
I. How important is it the historical context (the work’s and the reader’s) to interpreting the work?
5. Reader-Response Criticism: This approach takes as a fundamental tenet that “literature” exists
not as an artifact upon a printed page but as a transaction between the physical text and the mind of
a reader. It attempts “to describe what happens in the reader’s mind while interpreting a text” and
reflects that reading, like writing, is a creative process.

6. Structuralism focused on how human behavior is determined by social, cultural and psychological
structures. It tended to offer a single unified approach to human life that would embrace all
disciplines. The essence of structuralism is the belief that “things cannot be understood in isolation,
they have to be seen in the context of larger structures which contain them. For example, the
structuralist analysis of Donne’s poem, Good Morrow, demands more focus on the relevant genre,
the concept of courtly love, rather than on the close reading of the formal elements of the text.

7. Sociological focuses on man’s relationship to others in society, politics, religion, and business.

Questions to be asked for Sociological Approach

A. What is the relationship between the characters and their society?

B. Does the story address societal issues, such as race, gender, and class?
C. How do social forces shape the power relationships between groups or classes of people in
the story? Who has the power, and who doesn’t? Why?
D. How does the story reflect the Great American Dream?
E. How does the story reflect urban, rural, or suburban values?
F. What does the work say about economic or social power? Who has it and who doesn’t? Any
Marxist leanings evident?
G. Does the story address issues of economic exploitation? What role does money play?
H. How do economic conditions determine the direction of the characters’ lives?
I. Does the work challenge or affirm the social order it depicts?
J. Can the protagonist’s struggle be seen as symbolic of a larger class struggle?
K. How does the microcosm (small world) of the story reflect the macrocosm (large world) of the
society in which it was composed?
L. Do any of the characters correspond to types of government, such as a dictatorship,
democracy, communism, socialism, fascism, etc.? What attitudes toward these political
structures/systems are expressed in the work?

Now, you have learned the basic principles of writing criticisms. Let’s apply our skill by doing
these activities.

WHAT I CAN DO
ACTIVITY 2
Directions: Summarize what you have read by completing the table with what you understood. Write
your answers in your notebook.

APPROACHES IN
WHAT IT IS HOW IT IS DONE
LITERARY
(DEFINITION) (TECHNIQUE IN WRITING)
CRITICISM
Example: This approach regards literature A primary goal for formalist critics is to
as “a unique form of human determine how elements of form (style,
Formalism knowledge that needs to be structure, tone, imagery, etc.) work
examined on its own terms.” together with the text’s content to
shape its effects upon readers.
 You have just been given several approaches in literary criticism that you can use when you
make your own review or critique. You can use this in the following activities. Just remember to
apply which is easy for you to do and follow the techniques in using it.

ACTIVITY 3. READ CRITICALLY

Activities 1-3 gave you ideas about the manner and approaches to use in expressing views.
Let us learn more about this skill by reading a text which is an excerpt of the homily of the Catholic
Archbishop of Manila, Jaime Cardinal Sin. But before you read it, let us define these words first.
Directions: Get the meaning of these words from any dictionary so that you can understand what
you are reading better: Write your answer in your notebook.
WORDS MEANINGS FROM DICTIONARY
Cynic
Demoralize
Ang Destabilize Bayan
Muna Anarchic Bago
ang Unrelentingly Sarili
Chronic disease
Callous
Predominant
Transcend
Authentic
Vigorously
(Excerpts from the Homily of Jaime Cardinal Sin
at the mass celebrating the 5th death anniversary of Ninoy Aquino)

(1) Five years later, we might ask ourselves; has Ninoy’s dream been fulfilled? Have we succeeded in
building a new nation, by “transcending our petty selves,” by setting aside our differences by working
together in a spirit of true self-giving, loving our country first, above our own interest? Bayan muna,
bago and sarili. It is a question we must ask ourselves, as we remember Ninoy’s gift.

(2) It has been said that the truest motto of our people is “K.K.K”. No, not Katipunan, shaping unity
out of our diversity. How we wish that were our authentic name! But rather:

Kanya-Kanya’ng Katwiran,
Kanya-Kanya’ng Kagustuhan,
Kanya-Kanya’ng Kabig (or worse)
Kanya-Kanya’ng Kurakot...
or whatever else each one “specializes” in!

(3) Cynics among us say that K.K.K is the definition of our national character, the predominant strain
in our national culture. It’s what we are when we are “most natural”, most ourselves. “ Bayan muna,
Bago and Sarili” is an abstract, non-operative ideal, good for speeches, good for posters, goo for
classroom rhetoric but not for real, not for real life. For real is K.K.K.

(4) Kanya-Kanyang Katwiran, Kanya-Kanyang kagustuhan. We all remember the three monkeys; See
no Evil, hear no evil, speak no evil. Sometimes one wonders, if it has become a national pastime, to
see and hear and speak nothing, but evil against our fellow-citizens. Talk can be a great service in a
free nation: Talk is space for free discussion, for intelligent debate, the exchange of information and
perception, the clash of views.
(5) Ninoy himself said: “We must criticize in order to be free, because we are free only when we
criticized.” We may not, at our own peril, forget that. But we must remind ourselves that criticism is
not an end in itself; it is not the absolute. It is meant to help us to become free, but if it becomes the
all-encompassing output of our days, a way of life... so it takes up most of our energy, most of our
time, when we begin to take delight in tearing down, demoralizing, destabilizing; when we are at each
other’s throats all day long, then we really are engaged in self-destruction, and the destruction of
hope, the creation of despair, especially among the poor who continue to suffer in our midst.

(6) There is a Latin saying: “Unicuique suum, non praevalebunt.” “Every man for himself: That’s the
formula for disaster.” When Ninoy spoke of “the quest for that
elusive national unity which is imperative for the nation’s survival”-he said “survival”. He meant
“survival”. How can we survive, as a nation and as a people, if we have made the name of our
national game as anarchic free-for-all in a “basket of crabs?”

(7) K.K.K also means, we are told, Kanya Kanyang Kabig, Kanya- Kanyang Kurakot. Surely I don’t
need to dwell on this theme this morning. For weeks, the papers, radios, TV, have shouted nothing
else. It is the talk of the marketplace. I myself have spoken, often enough, of the 40 big thieves left
behind in our midst, and many many smaller ones which might include . . . even ourselves? Who
among us did not re-echo the sentiments and the work of the beloved Chino Roces when he asked
for a renewed moral order in government and society? It is a problem which must be addressed, and
addressed vigorously and unrelentingly.

(8) I am sure this will be increasingly done by our president, by consistent personal example she has
set a pattern for others to follow. I know she is bent on pursuing the battle against corruption with ever
more forceful and energetic action. But we know, we know that she and those around her cannot do
this all by themselves. As citizens, we must go “into an action mode ourselves.” The task cannot be
done without us.

(9) We must begin, rather, where we can begin, with ourselves we must ask: What can we do about
it? What in our own heart, in our own attitudes, in our own practices, must be changed? What
sacrifices must we ourselves do to make a positive contribution of deeds, to put under control this
chronic illness in our society, and in our culture?

(10) If all we do is talk and talk, and throw dirt at each other-forgetting to mind the ship and its
engines, and steer it in mine-filled waters-why, we will still be taking and quarrelling when our ship
goes down into the sea!

(11) If everyone in this church this morning, in Ninoy’s memory, pledge before the Lord that for one
year, “Bayan Muna, Bago ang Sarili”, would really be made an operative guideline, could it not mark
at least a beginning? If for one year, just to get going, we would make the principle govern our deeds,
our conduct in society, would that not be smart already? How can we “dream the impossible dream”
and promise to follow the stars” if we have become too calloused to do even this?

Answer the questions given: Write your answers in your notebook.

1. What critical approach did he use? Explain why you think that is the approach.

2. Do you agree with the author or not? Why or why not?

What you have read is an example of how one expresses opinions using one approach in
criticism. This can be a good model for you to study and follow.