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21st Century Literature from the

Philippines and the World
Quarter 2 Module 2
Classic and Contemporary Fiction
Quarter 2
Module 2 Lesson 2:
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21st Century Literature from the Philippines and the World
Quarter 2 : Module 2

MELC 1: Compare and contrast the various 21st century literary genres and
their elements, structures, and traditions from across the globe.

Specific Objectives:
1) Compare and contrast classic and contemporary fiction and their
elements, structures and traditions from across the globe.

2) Take to heart these aspects and develop a genuine love for world
literature.

Republic Act 8293, section 176 states that: No copyright shall subsist in
any work of the Government of the Philippines. However, prior approval of
the government agency or office wherein the work is created shall be
necessary for exploitation of such work for profit. Such agency or office may,
among other things, impose as a condition the payment of royalties.

Borrowed materials (i.e., songs, stories, poems, pictures, photos, brand

names, trademarks, etc.) included in this book are owned by their respective
copyright holders. Every effort has been exerted to locate and seek
permission to use these materials from their respective copyright owners.
The publisher and authors do not represent nor claim ownership over them.

Published by the Department of Education

Regional Director: Gilbert T. Sadsad
Assistant Regional Director: Ronelo Al K. Firmo

Development Team
Sorsogon City Division
Author: Ronnalyn N. Jalmasco
Teacher II, Bogña IS
Editors: Maricris Digo- Labayandoy/ Anne E. Mancia
T II, SNHS Asst. Principal, SNHS Senior High School
Reviewers: Cleofe D. Ariola and Albay Division (headed by Mai Anne
D. Rondola)
I. Introduction
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Rationale
Works in the 21st century includes several and different literary genres and one
of the common genres is fiction. A work of fiction is created in the imagination of its
author. The author invents the story and makes up the characters, the plot or storyline,
the dialogue and sometimes even the setting. A fictional work does not claim to tell a
true story. Instead, it immerses us in experiences that we may never have in real life,
introduces us to types of people we may never otherwise meet and takes us to places
we may never visit in any other way. Fiction can inspire us, intrigue us, scare us and
engage us in new ideas. It can help us see ourselves and our world in new and
interesting ways. Fiction as well can convey deep truths and resonate with readers
from all walks of life.

This module provides various activities and discussions for you to:

• compare and contrast the various 21st century literary genres and their
elements, structures and traditions from across the globe.
II. Pre-Test

Try-Out
Activity 1: Match It. Match each of the following terms with its correct definition.
Write your answers on a separate sheet of paper.

a. The narrator's perspective (who is telling the

1. Genre story)

2. First Person b. Where and when a story takes place

Narrator
c. A made-up story
3. Exposition

4. Theme d. The narrator is NOT a character in the story

5. Point of View e. The main characters and what they want

6. External f. Man vs. Man, Man vs. Nature, or Man vs.

Conflict Society

7. Climax g. The person or event that opposes the main

character
8. Non-fiction 1

9. Antagonist h. How the main conflict is resolved

10. Third Person i. Man vs. Self

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Narrator j. A true story or real information

11. Protagonist k. The lesson of a story (what the author wants

you to know about life)
12. Resolution
l. The most exciting part of a story
13. Internal
conflict
m. The main character in a story
14. Fiction
n. The narrator is a character in the story
15. Setting
o. The type or kind of story

III. Lesson Proper

Warm Up
Before you start your learning adventure, please try to
answer the task below. This task will give you an
overview of what you will learn as you go along this
module. Make sure to finish this task. Good luck!

Activity 2: Story or Not? Read the two works below and answer the questions that
follow. Write your answers on a separate sheet of paper.

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E05t8tE_0uszAcMouDNvPqFS89g9uKhlqOaJ2lVKxry8lj_gaJMJD8-ka2MZeJbNHkLD1-X7QcVMeam

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B

"Desert Storm"
Christine Stoddard

I did not lose the baby--she died. There was never any question about where she
was. First she was inside of me and then she was in the toilet. She didn't hide. She
didn't run away. I never had to phone a search party. When she called my womb
home, I felt her. When my body expelled her like poison, I saw her. I always knew
exactly where she was.

We did not try again for a year because that meant putting his cock where she
had been last. Trying again would mean replacing her and I was still sorting out what
had happened. One day I was pregnant and the next day I wasn't. I couldn't figure out
the cause, only the effect.

He said I would be my normal self again if only I said yes. But I kept saying no,
and soon he was the one who would break down sobbing because blue-veined
cheeses go with gin and stout, didn't I know that? Or the lint roller belongs in the top
left drawer, so why was I putting it in the top right?

The first time we embraced in all those months was right after I downed too
much Moscato because I had grown cheap and childish. Even though his first thrust
was hesitant and shy, I thought he had punched my cervix. When I squirmed, he
dotted my forehead with kisses and I froze. The next thrust was faster, bolder. Each
thrust went harder, deeper. A voice told me to lunge for his neck, so I heeded the call
and bit him like in the old days before she died. He bit me back. At one point we
established a rhythm, an understanding. The last thing I remember before falling
asleep was suppressing a tiny burp that tasted like semen and sweet wine.

The next morning, I did my hair. I did my make-up. I put on my most beautiful
Oscar de la Renta. I left the house and I walked the way elegant people walk in old
movies. I noticed birds and sunshine and little white flowers pushing out from the
sidewalks of Washington. I even noticed little boys playing catch in their front yard
without cringing. It was Tuesday in Tenleytown and I headed to Chevy Chase on foot.
I joked that I wouldn't get there until Thursday and had a real chuckle. Not a polite
one. An actual chuckle.

He and I got into the beautiful habit of making love. We left hickeys with no
remorse. We wrote notes to each other and left them for each other around the house.
We said fuck it to cheese and wine pairings and had what we wanted. And then one
day, the test came back positive.

"When will I feel the baby?" I asked the doctor several weeks later, wringing my
hands.

"Soon," he said and smiled.

"No," I said, suddenly realizing how small my voice sounded. "Why haven't I felt
the baby yet?" I met my husband's eyes. He looked away.
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The doctor clasped my hand and said slowly and firmly, "Your baby is healthy."

On his way out the door, he patted my husband's shoulder. I sighed.

The next night, January 16, 1991, we were watching TV after dinner. ABC News
correspondent Gary Shepard was on the air, reporting live from Baghdad, where the
city sat in silence. Suddenly, at 6:35 p.m., Shepard said, "Peter, I'm looking directly
west from our hotel now, and throughout the entire sky there are flashes of light."
Then came the sound of tracer fire.

I almost turned to my husband and cried that the war had started when the
quickening occurred. It felt like the baby was brushing a fluttering butterfly against
my belly.

"She's kicking!" I cried.

https://l.facebook.com/l.php?u=http%3A%2F%2Fsotospeakjournal.org%2Fdesert-storm%2F%3Ffbclid%3DIwAR1
oC-AoxT0pB0y-_pLpraS-czJVqOcV46ecpV7rC3X6znml0j807ciLUcE&h=AT2wxTBvadtCUoOXRsn9DOOX-fFOWL
ComsWbiggqm6N8hHO0O21mHbth7a4F7UTn2lZFibIwpUsks0a5jx_PUg7BKt7p7LzAYyAOgazy0c_nMyphsHkHiH
RksQLezTcpVenDzr9X03WeiR8nF9N3-w

Now answer these questions: Write your answers on a separate sheet of paper.

1. Which of the two items do you consider a story? Justify your answer.

Study These

Below are some discussions, which will help you familiarize fiction and flash fiction
including their elements, structures and other relevant information.

What Is Fiction?

Fiction is make-believe, invented stories. They may be short stories, fables, vignettes,
plays, novellas, or novels. Although writers may base a character on people they have
met in real life, the characters and the experiences that the character faces in the story
are not real.

ELEMENTS OF FICTION
The six major elements of fiction are character, plot, point of view,
setting, style, and theme.

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1. Character -- A figure in a literary work (personality, gender, age,
etc). E. M. Forester makes a distinction between flat and round
characters. Flat characters are types or caricatures defined by a
single idea of quality, whereas round characters have the
three-dimensional complexity of real people.

2. Plot –- the major events that move the action in a narrative. It is

the sequence of major events in a story, usually in a cause-effect
relation.

3. Point of View -- the vantage point from which a narrative is told.

A narrative is typically told from a first-person or third-person point
of view. In a narrative told from a first-person perspective, the
author tells the story through a character who refers to himself or
herself as "I." Third –person narratives come in two types:
omniscient and limited. An author taking an omniscient point of
view assumes the vantage point of an all-knowing narrator able not
only to recount the action thoroughly and reliably but also to enter
the mind of any character in the work or any time in order to reveal
his or her thoughts, feelings, and beliefs directly to the reader. An
author using the limited point of view recounts the story through the
eyes of a single character (or occasionally more than one, but not all
or the narrator would be an omniscient narrator).

4. Setting –- That combination of place, historical time, and social

milieu that provides the general background for the characters and
plot of a literary work. The general setting of a work may differ
from the specific setting of an individual scene or event.

5.Style -- The author’s type of diction (choice of words), syntax

(arrangement of words), and other linguistic features of a work.

6. Theme(s) -- The central and dominating idea (or ideas) in a

literary work. The term also indicates a message or moral implicit in
any work of art.

Source: https://web.csulb.edu/~yamadaty/EleFic.html

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However, as the making of these stories, evolve, other varied types have evolved.
Other than the classical way of writing fictional stories, we now have other forms
which are still considered as stories. One of which is flash fiction.

What Is Flash Fiction?

Flash fiction is a genre of fiction, defined as a very short story. While there is no
set word count that separates flash fiction from more traditional short stories, flash
fiction stories can be as short as a few words (while short stories typically run for
several pages). Flash fiction is also known as sudden fiction, short-short stories,
microfiction, or microstories.

As a general rule, flash fiction is considered to be less than 1,000 words long.
And believe it or not, you can study how to write it. I did a web search for “how to
write a flash fiction story” and got five million hits, including some for courses that
would take way longer to complete than would simply writing a bunch of flash pieces
until you get the hang of it.

3 Characteristics of Flash Fiction

Flash fiction stories share a number of common characteristics.

Brevity. Flash fiction compresses an entire story into the space of a few paragraphs.
There is no defined word count for flash fiction, but some commonly used word
limits in flash fiction range from just six words on the short end to around 1,000
words on the longer end.

A complete plot. A flash fiction story is indeed a story, with a beginning, middle,
and end. This sets it apart from a prose poem or vignette, which can explore an
emotion, memory, or thought without a plot.

Surprise. Great flash fiction often incorporates surprise, usually in the form of a
twist ending or an unexpected last line. This is not a gimmick: the aim is to prompt
the reader to think deeply about the true meaning of the story.

ELEMENTS OF FLASH FICTION

1. A plot. To be clear, a flash fiction piece is a complete story. Just like a longer
piece of fiction, your flash piece needs a beginning, a middle, and an ending. I saw
one website that recommended writing an outline for each flash story. I think that’s
going a little overboard; your outline could end up longer than the story. But if your
story doesn’t have an ending – if, say, you find you’ve written a scene that could be
part of a longer story, or even part of a novel – then it’s not technically flash fiction.

2. Characters. You don’t have a lot of space to describe your characters, obviously,
but readers should still be able to tell them apart. Use telling details that you can
describe in a few words. Keep your character count low, and stick with one
point-of-view.

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3. A hook. A flash story should start with a compelling scene and keep going. Just as
in any other type of story, you need to include some kind of conflict – an internal or
external (or both) challenge that your characters have to meet.

4. A slam-bang finish. Remember what I said about flash fiction needing an ending?
A lot of successful flash pieces employ a twist at the end. Think of structuring your
story as you would a joke; although your ending doesn’t need to be funny, it ought to
be something that the reader didn’t see coming.

Activity 3 : This and That Story

Based on what you have learned, can you try to compare and contrast fiction
and flash fiction based on their elements, structure and tradition? Just pick words
from the word box to fill out the Venn Diagram below. Write your answers on a
separate sheet of paper.

Elements Structure Tradition

Plot Complete plot Characters and

experiences that the
Characters Brief character faces in the story
Conflict Cause-effect relation are not real

Setting

Fiction Flash Fiction

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Activity 4 : Making Stories

Refer back to the first two stories in Activity 2 (Baby Shoes and Desert Storm). Both
are actually stories where one is fiction and the other a flash fiction. Now, let’s try to
examine both and see how they are similar or different from each other. Just fill up
the table below. Write your answers on a separate sheet of paper.

Points of Comparison Baby Shoes Desert Storm

Are there characters?

Can you infer who they

are?

Is there conflict in the

story?

Can you tell what it is?

What do you notice about

the plot?

Is it complete?

Can you write down the

sequence of major events
in the story?

Does it have a theme?

What is it?

How is the story

presented?

What do you notice about

the number of words used
to tell the story?

Generalization
You are almost done with your learning journey,
and I think you enjoyed your tasks.
Based on what you have learned, answer the following:

1. What are your observations about Fiction and the many other emerging types of
stories under it?
2. What do you think about fiction and flash fiction? Do you prefer one over the
other? Why or why not?
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 Application
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Congratulations! You have come this far in your learning adventure.

And I think you are now ready for the real world! To prove this, read the two
stories below and do the tasks that follow.

a. The Lineup
The row of men in their mid to late thirties stared straight ahead. Sarah felt
uncomfortably like they could see her looking at them, despite the two-way mirror.
The lighting angled into their faces would also make it hard for anyone to see out. It
showed up every detail of their faces and clothing, every flaw. Sarah tried not to
think about it.

Three of them were out straight away. Too short. They were so far off, she was
surprised they’d been included. She crossed off two more with the wrong physique.
Their shoulders weren’t broad enough. Number 7 had a terrible, affected moustache.
It made him look like a pimp or some kind of cheap criminal. Wrong, wrong, wrong.
She paused in front of Number 12 and chewed the end of her pen. Right height, right
build but there was something she couldn’t put her finger on. She could always come
back and look again. Thirty men, ten minutes. Plenty of time to make the right
decision.

She moved along the line as her mind wandered to dinner. She’d come straight
from work and had had to skip lunch again to run between meetings. She realised
she’d passed over 19 to 24 while she was thinking about food. This was important.
She needed to focus.

Number 25, balding, no way. So far she had crossed off over half of them. She
ticked 28 and 29 just to allow some chance of finding the right guy even though they
were blond and she’d said tall and dark. She went back to the beginning again and
ticked five more. A second look at Number 12 and she immediately spotted what it
was that had bothered her earlier. The shoes! Scruffy trainers with an otherwise not
bad pair of jeans – not Diesel…

“Can they all turn round?” Sarah asked the attendant. A buzzer sounded and the
men turned to face the wall. Number 12’s jeans were not only Armani, they were a
great fit on a very nice bum. Maybe this guy had some style after all and the trainers
were just an aberration.

One minute left. The buzzer sounded and Number 12 flashed a cheeky smile as if
he knew where she’d been looking. Tick.

The Exit sign blinked and she deposited her clipboard in the box on the way out. She
let some of the women pass her. She figured being at the beginning or the end of the
women’s lineup was the best way of being picked. Ten minutes of holding your

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stomach in and smiling. MicroSpeed Dating, harsh but efficient. They should make
that their slogan instead of “Takes minutes, lasts a lifetime”.

Source: Prentis, Nicola. (2017) The Line Up

https://simpleenglishuk.wordpress.com/2017/02/24/the-lineup-a-flash-
fiction-lesson/

b. Six-Word Story

“Who hurt you?’

“My own expectations.”

What What
makes both makes both
stories stories
similar? different?

IV. Assessment 10

Test Yourself

Answer the task below. Give the word defined in each item. Write your answers on a
separate sheet of paper.

1. A story which is unreal or make believe.

2. Kind or type of story.
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3. People who portray roles or are part of a story.
4. The sequence of events in a story.
5. A briefly written fictional story.
6. The problem that arises in a story.
7. The place or time in which a story takes place.
8. The narrator’s perspective.
9. The main character in the story.
10. The main topic discussed in a story.

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KEY TO CORRECTION

Pre- Test
1. O

2. N

3. E

4. K

5. A

6. F

7. L

8. J

9. G

10. D

11. M

12. H

13. I

14. C

15. B

Study These (Answers may vary)

Enrichment Activities
Activity 3.

Plot Complete plot

FictionCharacters Setting
Flash Fiction
Conflict
Cause-effect relation Brief
Characters and
experiences that the
character faces in the story
are not real

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Activity 4 :

(Answers may vary)

Generalization (Answers may vary)

Application (Answers may vary)

Assessment
1. Fiction 2. Genre
3. Characters 4. Plot
5. Flash fiction 6. Conflict
7. Setting 8. Point of View
9. Protagonist 10. Theme

REFERENCES:
Gaiman, Neil (2019) Flash Fiction

https://www.masterclass.com/articles/writing-101-what-is-flash-ficti
on-learn-how-to-write-flash-fiction-in-7-steps#what-are-the-origins-
of-flash-fiction

Janos, Arany (2015) Jacob the Great

https://en.islcollective.com/english-esl-worksheets/material-type/re
ading-comprehension-activities/reading-comprehension-jacob-great/561
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Prentis, Nicola. (2017) The Line Up

https://simpleenglishuk.wordpress.com/2017/02/24/the-lineup-a-flash-
fiction-lesson/

Fiction

https://web.csulb.edu/~yamadaty/EleFic.ht

https://images.app.goo.gl/J2MdgxLi7yJEmR

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