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STUDENT’S EDUCATIONAL PACKET

21st Century Literature from the Philippines and the World
Grade12
2 nd
Quarter – Week Sixteen
Literary Landmarks

OBJECTIVES: This lesson will examine how element and genre come together through the poem
“Stonehenge” by Rio Alma
1. Explain the text in terms of literary elements, genres, and traditions.
2. Demonstrate a more appreciative way of looking at landmarks and other cultural icons.
3. Respond critically to the poem and consequently articulate this response through an educational
brochure of a landmark or tourist spot of the students’ choice.

INTRODUCTION: Trackback
Critical appreciation of a genre is not just about knowing and understanding its generalities. Familiarizing
yourself with the things that make it tick is essential to the process that will lead you a profound and scholarly
understanding of the genre. It is no different from, say, trying to understand how a game is more than just a
matter of shooting and stealing the basketball. There are different kinds of players with specialized roles. There
are critical kinds of defensive plays that a team can utilize especially when going against opposing teams of
different sizes and specialties. We can say that the spot of basketball has an entire language.

Task 1: HEROES
Directions: Think of five heroes/superheroes or villains/supervillains or superheroes/supervillains from comics,
movies, TV, etc. Many of these characters, are named after existing historical/fictional/mythological figures. In
the box below, identify each character’s role in their fictional universe and then look up their origins.
CHARACTER ROLE ORIGINS
Loki The adoptive brother and In Norse mythology, Loki is the
archenemy of Thor in the Marvel god mischief and is responsible for
comics and movies. various unfortunate events.

Read the selection “Stonehenge” by Rio Alma to the questions that follow.

“STONEHENGE”
by Rio Alma
Manila

DISCUSSION: The Essay Analysis

STONEHENGE (Lines 1-24)

Rio Alma
I chose this instead of Windsor or My Fair Lady
To measure, with some exactitude, our distance from ourselves

For after some three thousand years,

From rim of wheel or ring of fire, we have raised

Monuments of steel and glass, towering edifices,

On every shore found by every fish that ever jumped out of water.
But, O Stonehenge, great gallery of stone!
Monument of a hundred and one first-born chunk of rock face!

And our forefathers, great little giants

With the strength of a thousand dinosaurs and the knowledge of gods!

They carved them out, said the leaflet, these monstrous dolmens
Of adobe, each a thousand times their size and weight,

Pushing and pulling each over ridge and slope

Across thick gorse or pine forest, across dense grove

More magic ingredient enriched their meals,

What wondrous juice from a thousand vines spiked their wines,

To stouten breast and toughen limb

To carve and move and stand these stones

That until now endure and reign in sun or rain

More than half are gone, or have been stolen, some

Are fallen among grass, but the rest

Are upright –like warriors

Standing their ground until felled

And so our materialistic mind insists:

What drove the stone-age consciousness

To devote life and lives to these over a thousand years?

And we explain to ourselves with a little raised eyebrow;

These are ancient altars to the sun or sacred burial ground

Governed by the same primal principle that built the pyramids and temples
From Egypt, Sumer, and Greece to Chile, and Mexico,

That these are shrines for solstice rites,

Where nubile maidens dance

Or old crones mutter and rant at the sky when the sun
Is most pregnant at the height of summer or in the dead of winter

And we equate this to the function of each building we construct

In the trade and commerce of our lives

Or the impact on public relations of a mountain’s decapitations,

The death of springs and waterways in the advent of cables and highways

But if they only wanted to imitate the mountain?

What id one-day the poet king awoke

And spoke? I dream I’m making a mountain

They were at the middle of a war then

But the poet-king conferred with the enemy

And in the noblest words and metaphors told them

His dream. The angels must have come to his help

For everyone agreed to stop the fighting and the killing.

Forget the remote cause of the endless killing.

And help each other make real the proposal of the poet-king.

All of themselves they gave to searching for and rolling the stones
And so they forgot all about conflict, pasture and field
Thrived and flourished, and in ten centuries
They were able to raise a Mountain of peace

Like the turtle who wanted to be like the heron,

Life is a game of flight and fetters

That fortunately we will not leave to the decree of the stars

But which we might be entrusting so much

To the light of prayer and faith we grew up with

Or the newfangled and harsh lenses and scalpels of science.

Now, as we circle the remaining stones of Stonehenge

And the wind of the coming winter brushes our cheeks,

The stones and meadow seem stunned in the silence.

My fellow visitors walk but they are motionless.

Someone is talking but there is no voice. Cameras

Snap but there is no click. The fog slowly descends

And before me pass the undulating parade

Of pestilence and wars of our own making, black and white

Pictures issuing from the hard surface of stones:

The soundless blast and disintegration of flowers and bridges

Mute military armor scarping fields and gardens,

Pale, crumbling pillars and headless saints,

Or the drowned sobs of hungry infants…

And ending with the image of Proteus astride his dolphins,

Shifting shape to avoid uttering the truth

He should have said it, long ago. He should have stopped

The ancestor of the lizard rising from the cursed land

To remind him of the loss of paradise among fish.

Translated from the Filipino by

Marne L. Kilates

Task 2: Navigate
Directions: Respond critically to the following questions and worksheets to process the selection:
1. Repeating our exercises in the trackback section, find and tabulate at three allusions in the text and identify
their original meaning as well as their function in the poem.
ALLUSION ORIGINAL ROLE FUNCTION IN THE TEXT

2. Look of lines 3 – 16. What is the speaker of the poem comparing Stonehenge to?
What is the basis for his comparison? How Stonehenge different from whatever he is comparing it to?

3. How are the stone monuments described in lines 17-25? Comment on the speaker’s attitude towards these
monuments. How does he perceive them?

4. What does Alma mean by “materialistic mind”? What examples of thoughts from materialistic mind can we
see in the poem?
5.What is Alma’s criticism to these thoughts from a materialistic mind? Why does he seem to disapprove of
such thoughts?

6. How does the image and story of the poet-king contrast these materialistic images?

7. What is the connection between the images of war and the reference to Proteus at the end of the poem?

Markers:
Allusion – are figures of speech that make reference to historical, mythological, and fictional figures.
The Couplet – is a structure of a poem where in the stanza come in twos.

The Author: Rio Alma

Virgilio Senadren Almario, better known by his pen name, Rio Alma, is a Filipino artist, poet, critic, translator,
editor, teacher, and cultural manager. He is a National Artist of the Philippines.

Growing up in Bulacan among peasants, Almario sought his education in Manila and completed his degree in
A.B. Political Science at the University of the Philippines. A prolific writer, he spearheaded the second
successful modernist movement in Filipino poetry together with Rogelio G. Mangahas and Lamberto E.
Antonio. His earliest pieces of literary criticism were collected in Ang Makata sa Panahon ng Makina (1972),
now considered the first book of literary criticism in Filipino. Later, in the years of martial law, he set aside
modernism and formalism and took interest in nationalism, politics and activist movement. As critic, his critical
works deal with the issue of national language.

Aside from being a critic, Almario engaged in translating and editing. He has translated the best
contemporary poets of the world. He has also translated for theater production the plays of Nick Joaquin,
Bertolt Brecht, Euripedes and Maxim Gorki. Other important translations include the famous works of the
Philippines' national hero, Jos Rizal, namely Noli Me Tangere and El filibusterismo. It was deemed as the
best translation by the Manila Critics Circle.
Almario has been a recipient of numerous awards such as several Palanca Awards, two grand prizes from
the Cultural Center of the Philippines, the Makata ng Taon of the Komisyon sa Wikang Filipino, the TOYM for
literature, and the Southeast Asia Write Award of Bangkok.
He was an instructor at the Ateneo de Manila University from 1969-1972. He only took his M.A. in Filipino in
1974 in the University of the Philippines. In 2003, he was appointed Dean of the College of Arts and Letters in
the said university. In June 25 of the same year, he was proclaimed National Artist for Literature.
Almario is also the founder and workshop director of the Linangan sa Imahen, Retorika, at Anyo (LIRA), an
organization of poets who write in Filipino. Award-winning writers and poets such as Roberto and Rebecca
Aonuevo, Romulo Baquiran Jr., Michael Coroza, Jerry Gracio, and Vim Nadera are but some of the products
of the LIRA workshop.
Task 3: Constellate
Directions: In the table, tabulation the second column what each of these landmarks mean to you as a viewer
and in the third column they mean to the people of the country. On the fourth and final column find a common
ground where both your personal opinion and the landmark’s history meet.

LANDMARKS WHAT IT IS TO ME WHAT IT IS TO THE INTERSECTIONS

It is the Malacañang
Palace of the United
States, where one of the
most powerful people on
Earth resides. It is also a
place that I would like to
visit and tour in the future
as I would like to see
what it’s like after
watching so many
movies where the place
THE WHITE HOUSE is featured.
PEOPLE
For the people of In both, the white house
America, it is where the is described as place of
President of the United power. We acknowledge
States lives and works. It the unprecedented hold
is also one of the most the United States has as
secure and guarded a superpower in the
facilities. It is a metonymy affairs of the world.
of the US government
and depending on who is
sitting in power, the
dominant policy of the US
government.

THE EIFFEL TOWER

THE GREAT WALL OF

CHINA

THE PYRAMIDS OF
EGYPT

THE TAJ MAHAL

EVALUATION: Condense
Directions: In groups of four or five, think of a landmark or a tourist spot here in the Philippines and come up
with a brochure that will highlight in detail the cultural and historical significance of the place. Then in a five-
minute skit, pretend that you are a tour guide for this tourist spot. Your teacher will determine in advance who
your imagined audience is (e.g., a group of American tourists, Japanese high school students) and your
explanation must take into account their cultural background and context.
Grading Rubric
ITEMS EXCELLENT 15-10 GOOD 9-8 MAY STILL IMPROVE 7-5 POINTS
1. DISCUSSION
Clarity - 10
Organization - 10
2. PRESENTATION - 15
OVERALL
ENGAGEMENT - 15
TOTAL POINTS

SYNTHESIZE
Complete the following sentences.
1. The figurative device that makes reference to historical, fictional, or mythological characters is __________
2. A stanza with two lines is called a/an________________________________
3. Genres and elements influence each other. This statement is (true, false).
4. Rio Alma is the pen name of _____________________
5. Rio Alma is a National Artist for ________________________________________

ASSIGNMENT
Directions: In the poem, Rio Alma offers a speculative backstory as to how come about. No one really knows
why those stones were erected in the first place. Come up with your own backstory for this cluster of rocks.
Remember that the story of the poet-king was a story of peace and this was done as a contrast to the many
wars and conflict that are happening in the world today. What value or worldview can be gleaned from the
backstory you came up with? What contemporary issue will backstory interrogate?

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REFERENCE
Read more on Brainly.ph - https://brainly.ph/question/765680#readmore
21st Century Literature from the Philippines and the World by Sanches / Lizada / Agustin / Cuartero. Vibal