English 8

March 21-27, 2022

Quarter III: Module 4 – Analyze literature as a mirror to shared heritage of people with diverse
backgrounds
Name: ______________________ Year and Section:___________________
Score:____________________
Most Essential Learning Competency:
✓ Analyze literature as a mirror to shared heritage of people with diverse backgrounds

Learning Objectives
a. Recognize the relationship of culture, heritage, and diversity in understanding literary works;
b. Analyze literature as a mirror to the shared heritage of people with diverse backgrounds
c. Explain the importance to learn the literature as a mirror to the shared heritage of people with
diverse backgrounds.

INTRODUCTION
This module will help you understand how literature provides different meanings to different
people or teach different lessons to the same person at different life stages. It mirrors society and allows
us to understand the world better we live in. This can also open your consciousness that literature
reflects humanity and a way for us to understand each other.
ACTIVITY 1:

WHAT CAN YOU SAY ABOUT THE PICTURE?

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In understanding literature, there are so many things that we need to consider. it's a definition,
classification, relation to culture in association with the author's beliefs and personal backgrounds. For
you to be able to understand these concepts read and understand the details presented below.

What is Literature?

Literature. It refers to a body of written works such as poetry, novels, history,

biography, and essays that reflects the background of a certain culture. It is derived from the Latin
word litaritura/litteratura which means “writing formed with letters.” There are a number of ways that
literature is classified.

The most basic types of literature are fiction and non-fiction.

1. Fiction. It is a type of literature that is a product of a writer’s imagination. It can be inspired by

actual or completely made-up events. It is usually created through the use of clear details that we
recognize or that move us in some ways.

2. Nonfiction. It is a type of literature that is based on facts. It is a writing about real people, places,
and events which include biographies, auto-biographies, and interviews.

What are the Elements of a Story?

1. Setting. It refers to the time and place in which the action of the story happens.
2. Plot. It is defined as an interrelated sequence of events in a story where each event affects the
other, thus showing the cause-and-effect relationship.
3. Character. It refers to a person, an object, an animal, or imaginary creature personified in the story.
There are two types of characters: the protagonist and the antagonist.
4. Conflict. It refers to the problem that the main characters have to face.
5. Point of View. This is the angle of narration or the perspective from which the story is told.
6. Theme. It refers to the central idea or message of a story.

Culture is the characteristics and knowledge of a particular group of people, encompassing

language, religion, cuisine, social habits, music, and arts.
Diversity refers to the existence of variations of different characteristics in a group of people. These
characteristics could be everything that makes us unique, such as our cognitive skills and personality
traits, along with the things that shape our identity.

Heritage is our legacy from the past, what we live with today, and what we pass on to future
generations. It is also a background from which comes, or any sort of inherited goods.

Having acquired all these, we conclude that literature reflects society, its good values, and its
ills. It also projects the virtues or good values in society for people to imitate. As an imitation of
human action, literature often presents a picture of what people think, say, and do in society. It
is impossible to find a work of literature that excludes society's attitudes, morale, and values
since no writer have been brought up completely unexposed to the world around him.

The importance of learning the literature as a mirror to shared heritage of people with diverse
backgrounds.
1. To understand people’s culture, belief and traditions.
2. To understand that we are different from one another.
3. To understand that we need to respect other people and what makes them different from us, as
well.

Exercises.
Direction. Write TRUE if the statement is correct, and FALSE if it is not. Write your answer on the space
provided.
____________1. Literature reflects the ideas and the feelings or emotions of the author.
____________2. Literature is derived from the Latin word “Litteratura” which means writing formed with
letters.
____________3. Literature doesn’t need to understand the difference from one another.
____________4. Whenever we read a piece of literary work, we see the reflection of the heritage of
the group of people belongs to.
____________5. Heritage means differing from one another, with different interest and culture.
Activity 2: Read, Analyze, and Interpret
Directions: Read the literary work below. Then answer the questions that follow

The Aged Mother

By: Matsuo Basho
Long, long ago there lived at the foot of the
mountain a poor farmer and his aged, widowed
mother. They owned a bit of land which supplied
them with food, and they were humble,
peaceful, and happy.
Shining was governed by a despotic leader who
though a warrior, had a great and cowardly
shrinking from anything suggestive of failing
health and strength. This caused him to send out
a cruel proclamation. The entire province was
given strict orders to immediately put to death all aged people. Those were barbarous days, and the
custom of abandoning old people to die was not uncommon. The poor farmer loved his aged
mother with tender reverence, and the order filled his heart with sorrow. But no one ever thought
twice about obeying the mandate of the governor, so with many deep and hopeless sighs, the youth
prepared for what at that time was considered the kindest mode of death.
Just at sundown, when his day’s work was ended, he took a quantity of unwhitened rice which was
the principal food for the poor, and he cooked, dried it, and tied it in a square cloth, which he swung
in a bundle around his neck along with a gourd filled with cool, sweet water. Then he lifted his
helpless old mother to his back and started on his painful journey up the mountain. The road was long
and steep; the narrow road was crossed and re-crossed by many paths made by the hunters and
woodcutters. In some place, they lost and confused, but he gave no heed. One path or another, it
mattered not. On he went, climbing blindly upward -- ever upward towards the high bare summit of
what is known as Obatsuyama, the mountain of the “abandoning of the aged.”

The eyes of the old mother were not so dim but that they noted the reckless hastening from one path
to another, and her loving heart grew anxious. Her son did not know the mountain’s many paths and
his return might be one of danger, so she stretched forth her hand and snapping the twigs from
brushes as they passed, she quietly dropped a handful every few steps of the way so that as they
climbed, the narrow path behind them was dotted at frequent intervals with tiny piles of twigs. At last,
the summit was reached. Weary and heart sick, the youth gently released his burden and silently
prepared a place of comfort as his last duty to the loved one. Gathering fallen pine needles, he
made a soft cushion and tenderly lifted his old mother onto it. Hew rapped her padded coat more
closely about the stooping shoulders and with tearful eyes and an aching heart he said farewell.

The trembling mother’s voice was full of unselfish love as she gave her last injunction. “Let not thine
eyes be blinded, my son.” She said. “The mountain road is full of dangers. LOOK carefully and follow
the path which holds the piles of twigs. They will guide you to the familiar path farther down.” The
son’s surprised eyes looked back over the path, then at the poor old, shriveled hands all scratched
and soiled by their work of love. His heart broke within and bowing to the ground, he cried aloud:
“oh, Honorable mother, your kindness breaks my heart! I will not leave you. Together we will follow the
path of twigs, and together we will die!”

Once more he shouldered his burden (how light it seemed now) and hastened down the path,
through the shadows and the moonlight, to the little hut in the valley. Beneath the kitchen floor was a
walled closet for food, which was covered and hidden from view. There the son hid his mother,
supplying her with everything she needed, continually watching and fearing she would be
discovered. Time passed, and he was beginning to feel safe when again the governor sent forth
heralds bearing an unreasonable order, seemingly as a boast of his power. His demand was that his
subjects should present him with a rope of ashes.

The entire province trembled with dread. The order must be obeyed yet who in all Shining could
make a rope of ashes? One night, in great distress, the son whispered the news to his hidden mother.
“Wait!” she said. “I will think. I will think” On the second day she told him what to do. “Make rope of
twisted straw,” she said. “Then stretch it upon a row of flat stones and burn it on a windless night.” He
called the people together and did as she said and when the blaze died down, thereupon the
stones, with every twist and fiber showing perfectly, lay a rope of ashes.

The governor was pleased at the wit of the youth and praised greatly, but he demanded to know
where he had obtained his wisdom. “Alas! Alas!” cried the farmer, “the truth must be told!” and with
deep bows, he related his story. The governor listened and then meditated in silence. Finally, he lifted
his head. “Shining needs more than the strength of youth,” he said gravely. “Ah, that I should have
forgotten the well-known saying, “with the crown of snow, there cometh wisdom!” That very hour the
cruel law was abolished, and custom drifted into as far a past that only legends remain.
Direction: Arrange the sentences chronologically according to their occurrences. Mark 1-8 on the
space provided.
_____a. The son made up his mind to take back his mother home.
_____b. A farmer decided to leave his old mother on top of a mountain.
_____c. The governor realized his mistake and abolished the law.
_____d. Once in Shining, a cruel ruler declared that all old people must be put to death.
_____e. Using the clever idea of his mother, the farmer made a rope of ashes.
_____f. When the farmer bade farewell, she advised him to return home with the aid of twigs.
_____g. Filled with dread, he hid his mother in his home.
_____h. The mother dropped the small twigs as markers on the way to help her son return.

Questions:
1. What was the cruel announcement made by the leader?
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2. What did the mother drop along the way?
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3. Why did the farmer bring back his mother home?
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Answer Key: Exercise

1. TRUE 2. TRUE 3. FALSE 4. TRUE 5. FALSE

Activity 2: A5 B2 C7 D1 E6 F4 G5 H3
Prepared by:

CATHLINE JANE ABEJO, BSED 4

Student Teacher
Checked by:

MRS. GLORIA N. BACAYO, LPT

Student Teacher Mentor

Submitted to:

MS. ESTRELLA E. GENERAN, LPT

Acting Principal, JHS