Republic of the Philippines

MINDANAO STATE UNIVERSITY

Fatima, General Santos City
SENIOR HIGH SCHOOL

ENGLISH FOR ACADEMIC AND PROFESSIONAL PURPOSES

MODULE 2

Writing the Review/Reaction/Critique Paper

Reviews are forms of academic writing in which the writer evaluates any
of the following: scholarly works (books, articles, etc.), arts (film, dance, music performances,
exhibits), events (festivals). It is a systematic way of forming opinion or giving reaction and
on a particular topic/subject and which requires critical assessment on various aspects related
to the subject.

How to Write the Review

 Read the material carefully. Whether it is a book, article, or a film, make sure to read or
watch it very carefully. Sometimes, you will need to repeat this procedure for a couple of
times.
 Mark interesting places while reading/watching. This will help you focus on the aspects
that impressed you the most and come back to them after you are done with reading or
watching.
 Write down your thoughts while reading/watching. Doing so, you won’t forget any
important ideas that came to your mind. highlight the main ideas and points you want to
discuss.
 Come up with a thesis statement. Use your notes to formulate a central idea you will
develop in your further work. Then put it in one sentence and make it your thesis statement.
 Compose an outline. Every time you write an academic paper, you need to make an outline
to organize all information and ideas to be included in your paper.
 Discuss your point of view thoroughly and back it with additional information if needed.
Use various references and citations to make your statement more argumentative and
persuasive.

Read a review of a movie entitled “Miracle in Cell No. 7” and evaluate whether it has the
characteristics of a good reaction paper/movie review or not.

Miracle in Cell No. 7: Film Review

A mentally handicapped single father is wrongly accused, tried and sentenced to death
for the rape-murder of an elementary school girl in Lee Hwan- kyung’s Miracle in Cell
No. 7. The miracle of the title is the series of meetings the man has with his daughter while in
prison in the months that lead up to his execution and the friendship she forges with his
fellow inmates. Years later, the girl grows into a woman set on exonerating her dad with their
help. Oh, this is a comedy.
 But then there’s the melodramatic, tragic aspect of the film that gives it its jarring tone.
The prison scenes are told in flashback as an adult Ye-sung (Park Shin-hye) addresses a court
in an attempt to prove her father’s innocence. Her biggest ally in the quest is Jang Min-hwan
(Jeong Jin-young), warden at the time of Yong-gu’s detention. In 1997 Jang is a grieving
father whose experience and gut instinct tell him Yong-gu may be innocent. He does his part
by looking the other way when Ye-sung neaks in and by raising the little girl later on. He also
digs around police records and uncovers a pattern of political prosecution, police ineptitude
and corruption that supports their claims. And Lee has a penchant for heavy-handed imagery
(the hot air balloon that gets snagged on barbed wire) and histrionics (walking the green mile)
that could bear judicious editing.

It is this odd mix of broad comedy and issue-based drama that makes Miracle so
perplexing and logic-defying. It’s hard to tell if Lee has made a social drama (legal
shortcomings and cronyism make headlines in Korea) disguised as a goofy comedy or a
comedy with an undercurrent of righteous anger. Either way, the film wouldn't work at all if it
wasn’t packed with engaging performances by some of Korea’s most reliable second-stringers.
Ryu (War of the Arrows) waffles between caricature and affecting as the handicapped Yong-
gu, and Gal occasionally suffers an overabundance of cute (though she’s far more interesting
than Park), but the rest of the cast more than compensate for their shortcomings, particularly
Oh (The Thieves) and Jeong (The King and the Clown). Miracle in Cell No. 7 is one of those
films you don’t want to, one you know you shouldn’t, but you just can’t help liking.

Activity
Do you consider the above example as a good review? Explain your answer.
 Activity
Direction: Write your own review or critique about any book you have read
or movie that you watched. Follow the guidelines below:

1. If you prefer a movie, choose one that is rated G (General Audiences).

2. Be sure to use appropriate language, manner and critical approach. You may use the
reader-response criticism, structuralism or formalism as an approach in writing the
review.
3. The language should be formal and easily understood by the general public. Use
everything that you have learned from this module.
4. You can also refer to the texts you have read. Those were very good examples and
you can use them as guide as you develop your own book or movie review.

Critical Approaches in Writing a Critique/Review

A critique is a genre of academic writing that briefly summarizes and
critically evaluates a work or concept. Critiques are written to introduce a
particular work and to evaluate its worth or value. Critique writing contributes to a better
understanding of the work by providing lenses that reveal the important aspects of a work.
There are various approaches used for writing critiques/reviews.
a. Formalism – focuses on analyzing and interpreting literary elements which include
style, structure, tone, and language to determine the effect of the text on the readers.
b. Reader Response Criticism – considers the readers’ reaction and experience in
interpreting the meaning of the work.
c. Feminism – critical analysis of a work based on a feminist perspective. This approach
considers women's knowledge in literature and valuing women's experiences.
d. Biographical Criticism – focuses on writer/author’s biography and its relationship to
the work which involves studying the author’s ideas, beliefs, and experiences to
interpret the meaning of the work.
e. Historical Criticism – analyzes and interprets the work based on the context in which
it was created or based on historical evidence.

f. Mimetic – interprets the work based on ‘real world’ standards with specific
considerations for universal truth and moral values.

Balanced/Objective Review or Criticism

It is a system of interpreting, judging, and assessing a person, thing, or any work of art
not influenced by feelings or opinions in considering and presenting facts. It is a systematic
way of considering the truthfulness of a piece of work. To have balanced/objective review of
any piece of work, the following are considered:
a. Description. Pure description of the object, piece of work, art, event, etc. It answers
the questions: "What do you see?" (description constitutes form of art, medium, size
and scale, elements or general shapes, color, texture of surface, and context of object).
"What do you see?" (form, structure, choice of words, length, genre, etc)
b. Analysis. Determining what the features suggest and deciding why the artist or writers
used such features to convey specific ideas. It answers the questions: "How did the artist
do it?" "How did the writer write it?” The analysis constitutes the following:
determination of subject matter, analysis of the principles of design or composition, use
of symbol and other elements, portrayal of movement and how it is achieved, effect of
particular medium, relationships of each part of the composition to the whole and to
each other part, and reaction to object.

c. Interpretation. Establishing the broader context for this type of art. It answers the
questions: artwork - "Why did the artist create it and what does it mean? piece of
writing - "Why did the write create it and what does it mean?
d. Judgment. Judging a piece of work means giving it rank in relation to other works and
of course considering a very important aspect of the visual arts; its originality. It
answers the questions “Is it a good artwork?” Is it a good composition?

Activity
One of the Filipino cultures that we continuously preserved and practiced is
“Bayanihan”. It is an expression of spirit of communal unity or effort to achieve a particular
objective. Below is the painting of “Bayanihan”; take a look at this, study, analyze, and
write a balanced/objective review of the painting considering the elements discussed. Write
your review in paragraph form in your notebook.