21ST CENTURY LITERATURE

FROM PHILIPPINES AND THE WORLD

LESSON 10:

BLOGS AND CHICK LIT

OBJECTIVES • Familiarize learners with blogs
and chick lit.
• Discover the difference of
these new forms of literature
with the classical forms of
literature
• Create and analyze examples
of the aforementioned forms.
WHAT IS BLOG?
BLOGS
A blog “weblog” is an online journal or
informational website displaying
information in reverse chronological
order, with the latest posts appearing
first, at the top. It is a platform where a
writer or a group of writers share their
views on an individual subject.
• The “weblog” coined by John Barger
in 1997 and then shortened to “blog”
by Peter Merholz in 1999.
• The “blogger” was later created in
reference to the person with a
blog.
• With the popularity of the internet,
blogs constituted another avenue
for the largely unrestricted flow
of information and ideas.
 Blog may classified according to their purpose:
ART PHOTO MUSIC EDUCATIONAL PERSONAL

• is one that • shows • discusses • concerns • shows

posts photographs one or itself with one’s
artistic many educational personal
works musical matters musings on
genres a given
topic or
topics.
• Modality rather than to a literary form
through which something is shared .
• Cyberspace, that most notable achievement
of the I.T revolution which has converted the
world into the proverbial “global village”.
• A diary, letter, short story, poem,
journalistic narrative, and even a novel
maybe posted in the internet as part of a
blog.
EXAMPLES
CAN YOU GIVE OTHER EXAMPLES OF BLOGS?
WHAT IS
CHICK LIT?
● Fiction, which "consists of Female-centered
narratives that focus on the trials and
tribulations of their individual protagonists".
● Modern womanhood – from romantic
relationships to female friendships to matters
in the workplace – in humorous and light-hearted
ways
● The genre became popular in the late 1990s,
with chick lit titles topping bestseller lists
and the creation of imprints devoted entirely
to chick lit.

● Chick lit critics generally agreed that British

author Catherine Alliott's The Old Girl Network
(1994) was the start of the chick lit genre and
the inspiration for Helen Fielding's Bridget
Jones's Diary (1996) which was wildly popular.
CHICK LIT IN THE PHILIPPINE CONTEXT
• To be looked upon by the older generation
as pocketbooks and novels that
encourage young people to do “Young
love”.
• Most of Chick lit novels in the Philippines
follow the “poor girl meets rich boy” or
the “Good girl meets bad boy”. Precious
hearts romances anyone?
 • Popular rich girl in town but
has no idea how to handle her
own love life. This novel has
been turned into several films
and even adapted for modern-
day audiences as the
movie Clueless, starring Alicia
Silverstone.

EXAMPLES OF CHICK LIT

• This heartbreaking story
about survival in 1930s Japan
reveals the last days of the
sometimes cruel but
mobilizing geisha culture in
Kyoto.

EXAMPLES OF CHICK LIT

CAN YOU GIVE OTHER EXAMPLES OF
CHICK LIT?
ACTIVITY
1. Find a blog on the web and describe what you have found.
State the name of the blog. Tell us whether you like it or not .
State its type and justify with evidence from the blog. Do it in
essay form.
2. Find short summaries of the following novels and answer
this question in essay form, “Is chick lit good or bad?”
Emma by Jane Austen
• Gone With the Wind by Margaret Mitchell
• My Imaginary Ex (Chic Manila, #1) by Mina V. Esguerra
• Every Beast Needs A Beauty by Jonahmae Panen Pacala

Analyse the summaries that you have read and reason out
whether chick lit is good or bad. Cite parts of the summary as
evidences.
THANK
YOU