\

Present a commentary / critique on a chosen creative

nonfictional text representing a particular type or form.
(Biography / Autobiography, Literary Journalism
/ Reportage, Personal Narratives, Travelogue,
Reflection Essay, True Narratives, Blogs, Testimonies,
Other Forms) HUMSS_CNF11/12-IIb-c-17
Creative Nonfiction
Self-Learning Module (SLM)
Quarter 1 - Module 1: Introduction to Literary Genres
First Edition, 2020

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 the
exploitation of such work for a 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 module 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.

Development Team of the Module

Writers: Edrian S. Sapul

Editor: Mary Rose D. Dilay
Reviewer: Joseph F. Jambalos
Illustrator & Layout Artist: Geriza R. Rico

Printed in the Philippines by Department of Education – Division of Oriental

Mindoro

Office Address: Sta. Isabel, Calapan City, Oriental Mindoro, 5200

Telefax: (043) 288-7810

E-mail Address: oriental.mindoro@deped.gov.ph

 MODULE 10:
Literary Journalism

IN A NUTSHELL
Whenever we turn on either the television or the radio, we also browse
tabloids, broadsheets, magazines, e-zines, and blogs we are
” the,

expose to different news concerning current issues and topics that

interest the general public.

The way the news is presented over media sounds too serious in
presenting facts and information may somehow create a boring
watching/reading experience to the readers. Thus, it is important that
writers strategize ways that will eventually presents journalistic text
engaging and significant to read.

TARGETS UNLOCKED
At the end of this module, you should be able
to
Competency:
1. Identify the characteristics of a well-written literary journalism
2. write a well-written critique /commentary on literary journalism.

CHECK YOUR SCHEMA

Hello guys, how many of you have read the newspaper regularly? How
many prefer getting information from the internet? How many of you spend
more time in the social media? How many of your still find time to write?
Task 1: Self-Check: “I love to Read and Write”
Directions: Give examples of the following reading materials you have read.

The last time I Was…

read
Magazine:
Books:
E-Books :
Watt pad:
Blogs:
Newspaper :

Directions: Check at least three types that you love to write:

Biography/Autobiography
Memoir
Critique
Reflection
Travelogue
Feature
Opinion/Commentary
Literary Journalism

What have you discovered about your reading and writing practice?

MAKE CONNECTIONS
In the previous lesson, you learned the different forms and types of creative nonfiction texts.
For this specific lesson we are going to focus on Literary Journalism.

Literary journalism is fun to write specially because this form of creative nonfiction is
synonymous to newspaper and magazine writing. It is also similar to the television shows
specifically documentaries and magazine shows that showcase the characteristics of literary
journalism which are fact-driven and research-based.

Task 2:
Directions: Arrange the jumbled letters to complete the following statements
about literary journalism.

1. RILYTEAR journalism and TANARIVER journalism are terms used

interchangeably.
2. There is interpretation, a PORSELAN point of view, and (often) experimentation
with structure and chronology. (Jan Witt)
3. Thomas B. Connery explained that literary journalisms is printed nonfiction
ROPES.
4. Literary journalism is consider reporting the CATSF that are outside writer’s life.
5. Literary journalism contains ACUTRACE, well-researched information, and is
also interesting to read.

Media offers many documentaries (I-witness, Failon Ngayon, ID etc.) and television
magazines (rated K, KMJS etc.) that expose people, places and other subjects interesting
to human. Watching them can be helpful in formatting your own journalistic essay. It helps
you to get acquainted with the factual, diverse and interesting stories about the subjects.

Task 3: What ‘Docu’(do you) mean? How docu (do you) do?

Directions: There are various documentary and investigative journalism uploaded in

YouTube. Try to watch, I-Witness: Walang Maiiwan by Kara David
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TZ73dKG_REo and answer the guide questions
below.

Name of the Documentary:

Subject/Content:
Significant Content:
INTRODUCTION: (Two-sentence description about the introduction)
BODY: (Try to list down 5 significant information that you learned from
the video)
ENDING/CONCLUSION: (Two-sentence description of the ending)
Your reaction/commentary about it:

PROBE & EXPLORE

Task 4: “Literary JournalismORE”
Directions: Read and annotate each paragraph to note relevant information
concerning the nature of literary journalism. Copy five key concepts about literary
journalism.

“Literary Journalism”: What It Is, What It Is Not

by D. G. Myers

(1) This morning, over at Critical Mass (the blog of the National Book Critics Circle),
Geoff Dyer reveals the five “works of literary journalism” that he likes best. Dyer
won the Circle’s 2011 criticism award for Otherwise Known as the Human
Condition, a collection of essays. It’s not his fault that his list of favorites is dull
and vapid. The classification of “literary journalism” is dull and vapid.
(2) As a term, literary journalism is first cousin to “literary fiction,” another dull and
vapid classification the republic of letters could do without. Apparently, literary
journalism is fancy journalism, highbrow journalism. It is journalism plus fine
writing. It is journalism with literary pretensions. But here’s the thing about
literary pretensions. They are pretentious. Good writers don’t brag about
writing literature, which is a title of honor. Good writers accept the moral
obligation to write well — that is, they subjugate themselves to the demands
of the text under hand — and they leave the question of literature, the
question of lasting value, up to the literary critics.

(3) The word journalism does not denote a genre, but a venue. Journalism is
what gets printed in journals and their digital successors, including blogs and
even Twitter. Literary journalism is periodical writing about literature. I am a
literary journalist, because I write about books for COMMENTARY. Edmund
Wilson is the patron saint of literary journalists. But when he wrote book-
length criticism that was not originally conceived as a series of contributions to
the journals (Patriotic Gore, for example), Wilson was no longer writing as a
journalist. And when he wrote journal pieces like those collected in The
American Earthquake but originally published in the New Republic (about “the
arts of the metropolis, from Stravinsky conducting Pétrouchka to Houdini,
nightclubs and burlesque shows, Charlie Chaplin in The Gold Rush, the
painting of O’Keeffe and George Bellows,” as his biographer describes them),
Wilson was no longer writing as a literary journalist.

(4) Most of what gets referred to as “literary journalism” is some combination of

history and travel writing — history because it undertakes to determine what
happened in a past, travel writing because it depends upon first-hand
observation in addition to documented evidence. Those who object that
journalism (of any kind) is not history are doing little beyond disclosing their
own prejudices and assumptions. “The question in history,” Michael
Oakeshott wrote, “is never what must, or what might have taken place, but
solely what the evidence obliges us to conclude did take place.” Thus the
historian and the journalist share the same obligation — an obligation to the
evidence. What did take place might have taken place five minutes or five
centuries ago, but as long as it belongs to the past, historian and journalist
share the same interest in it.

(5) Nor do their objectives differ, no matter how far apart their methods and prose
might seem to put them. Oakeshott again: “The historian’s business is not to
discover, to recapture, or even to interpret; it is to create and to construct.” Both
historians and journalists recreate the past in the name of reporting what the
evidence obliges them to conclude took place. Historians may claim to be more
comprehensive and objective; “literary” journalists, to be more compelling and
timely. But these claims are justified merely by the fact that some historians and
 some journalists have bought into them. They are self-advertisements, not
logical distinctions.
(6) There is no reason for anyone to repeat them, nor to compile lists of their
favorite “literary journalism.”

DEEPEN YOUR
UNDERSTANDING
The following concepts will further help you understand our lesson.

There are several terms use to address works under literary Journalism. It is also
called a docu-fiction, immersion journalism, new journalism and narrative journalism.
This type of nonfiction essay is best written since literary journalists involve
themselves in a subject they are writing about. Literary journalists write information
like reporters but write them in a way that the report reads like a fiction.

CHARACTERISTICS OF LITERARY JOURNALISM

1. Written information chosen from a real world but not invented from the write’s
mind. The writer writes something that exists in the natural world
2. The writer should consider the scene.
3. The subject matter has to be well-researched.
4. Accuracy has to be adhered to.

HOW to WRITE a LITERARY JOURNALISM

1. Explore your subject by means of personal reportage. Use Interviews, library and
internet for your resources.
2. Create an outline of your story. Point out your lead, cite important points and
plan how you will end the story.
3. Make your lead captivating and your ending strong.
4. Consider the choice of diction, sentence pattern, choice literary
devices (alliteration, imagery, metaphor, simile and so forth)
5. Feature a true story about a person, place, event or idea which are interesting
and informative.
6. Create a dramatic scenario, manifested in the action, dialogue, details
and setting.
7. Recount the story using the third-person point of view
8. Consider the universality of idea or truth presented in your work in order for
the reader to grasp its significance.
9. Be steered by the basics purpose of writing literary, journalistic text- to inform
and enlighten.
10. Conduct a comprehensive research about your topic.
QUALITIES of GOOD JOURNALISTIC WRITING
A. Focus and Coherence. The ideas are well connected with each other through
the use of appropriate words, phrases and sentences
B. Organization. The ideas logical movement of ideas from sentence to sentence
or paragraphs to paragraphs
C. Development of Ideas. The ideas are clearly defined, logically developed and
supported by appropriate details.
D. Voice. The connection of writer and reader with the use of appropriate personal
style and the use of unique words and phrases.
E. Conventions. It refers to the acceptable and correct use of all spelling,
punctuation, capitalization, grammar, usage and sentence structure.

WRITING A CRITIQUE
The Critique Format for Journalistic Essay
Introduction
• name of author and work
• general overview of subject and summary of author's argument
• focusing (or thesis) sentence indicating how you will divide the whole work for

discussion or the particular elements you will discuss

Body
• objective description of a major point in the work
• detailed analysis of how the work conveys an idea or concept
• interpretation of the concept
• repetition of description, analysis, interpretation if more than one major
concept is covered

• overall interpretation
• relationship of particular interpretations to subject as a whole
• critical assessment of the value, worth, or meaning of the work, both
negative and positive

PUT IT INTO PRACTICE

Literary journalists are free to compose an essay on any topic, such as
drug addiction, rape, unemployment, spirituality, or crime. Whatever the topic,
the writer needs factual and true information to write about a person, place,
event, or idea. These facts must be verifiable. In fact, every important fact must
be verifiable.

Task 5: READ and LEARN

Directions: Read the following example of a literary journalism essay written by
George Orwell and answer the questions that follow:
Marrakech
George Orwell

As the corpse went past the flies left the restaurant table in a cloud and rushed after it, but
they came back a few minutes later.

The little crowd of mourners-all men and boys, no women — threaded their way across the
market-place between the piles of pomegranates and the taxis and the camels, wailing a short
chant over and over again. What really appeals to the flies is that the corpses here are never put
into coffins, they are merely wrapped in a piece of rag and carried on a rough wooden bier on the
shoulders of four friends. When the friends get to the burying-ground they hack an oblong hole a
foot or two deep, dump the body in it and fling over it a little of the dried-up, lumpy earth, which is
like broken brick. No gravestone, no name, no identifying mark of any kind. The burying-ground
is merely a huge waste of hummocky earth, like a derelict building-lot. After a month or two no
one can even be certain where his own relatives are buried.

When you walk through a town like this — two hundred thousand inhabitants, of whom at
least twenty thousand own literally nothing except the rags they stand up in — when you see
how the people live, and still more how easily they die, it is always difficult to believe that you
are walking among human beings. All colonial empires are in reality founded upon that fact.
The people have brown faces — besides, there are so many of them! Are they really the
same flesh as yourself? Do they even have names? Or are they merely a kind of
undifferentiated brown stuff, about as individual as bees or coral insects? They rise out of
the earth, they sweat and starve for a few years, and then they sink back into the nameless
mounds of the graveyard and nobody notices that they are gone. And even the graves
themselves soon fade back into the soil. Sometimes, out for a walk, as you break your way
through the prickly pear, you notice that it is rather bumpy underfoot, and only a certain
regularity in the bumps tells you that you are walking over skeletons.

I was feeding one of the gazelles in the public gardens.

Gazelles are almost the only animals that look good to eat when they are still alive, in fact, one
can hardly look at their hindquarters without thinking of mint sauce. The gazelle I was feeding
seemed to know that this thought was in my mind, for though it took the piece of bread I was
holding out it obviously did not like me. It nibbled rapidly at the bread, then lowered its head and
tried to butt me, then took another nibble and then butted again. Probably its idea was that if it
could drive me away the bread would somehow remain hanging in mid-air.

An Arab navy working on the path nearby lowered his heavy hoe and sidled towards us. He
looked from the gazelle to the bread and from the bread to the gazelle, with a sort of quiet
amazement, as though he had never seen anything quite like this before. Finally he said
shyly in French:

‘I could eat some of that bread.’

I tore off a piece and he stowed it gratefully in some secret place under his rags. This man is
an employee of the Municipality.

When you go through the Jewish quarters you gather some idea of what the medieval ghettoes
were probably like. Under their Moorish rulers the Jews were only allowed to own land in certain
restricted areas, and after centuries of this kind of treatment they have ceased to bother about
overcrowding. Many of the streets are a good deal less than six feet wide, the houses are
completely windowless, and sore-eyed children cluster everywhere in unbelievable
numbers, like clouds of flies. Down the centre of the street there is generally running a little
river of urine.

In the bazaar huge families of Jews, all dressed in the long black robe and little black skull-
cap, are working in dark fly-infested booths that look like caves. A carpenter sits cross-
legged at a prehistoric lathe, turning chair-legs at lightning speed. He works the lathe with a
bow in his right hand and guides the chisel with his left foot, and thanks to a lifetime of sitting
in this position his left leg is warped out of shape. At his side his grandson, aged six, is
already starting on the simpler parts of the job.

I was just passing the coppersmiths’ booths when somebody noticed that I was lighting a
cigarette. Instantly, from the dark holes all round, there was a frenzied rush of Jews, many of
them old grandfathers with flowing grey beards, all clamouring for a cigarette. Even a blind
man somewhere at the back of one of the booths heard a rumour of cigarettes and came
crawling out, groping in the air with his hand. In about a minute I had used up the whole
packet. None of these people, I suppose, works less than twelve hours a day, and every one
of them looks on a cigarette as a more or less impossible luxury.

As the Jews live in self-contained communities they follow the same trades as the Arabs,
except for agriculture. Fruit-sellers, potters, silversmiths, blacksmiths, butchers, leather-
workers, tailors, water-carriers, beggars, porters — whichever way you look you see nothing
but Jews. As a matter of fact there are thirteen thousand of them, all living in the space of a
few acres. A good job Hitler isn't here. Perhaps he is on his way, however. You hear the
usual dark rumours about the Jews, not only from the Arabs but from the poorer Europeans.

‘Yes, mon vieux, they took my job away from me and gave it to a Jew. The Jews! They're the real
rulers of this country, you know. They've got all the money. They control the banks, finance
— everything.’

‘But,’ I said, ‘isn't it a fact that the average Jew is a labourer working for about a penny an
hour?’

‘Ah, that's only for show! They're all money-lenders really. They're cunning, the Jews.’

In just the same way, a couple of hundred years ago, poor old women used to be burned for
witchcraft when they could not even work enough magic to get themselves a square meal.

All people who work with their hands are partly invisible, and the more important the work
they do, the less visible they are. Still, a white skin is always fairly conspicuous. In northern
Europe, when you see a labourer ploughing a field, you probably give him a second glance.
In a hot country, anywhere south of Gibraltar or east of Suez, the chances are that you don't
even see him. I have noticed this again and again. In a tropical landscape one's eye takes in
everything except the human beings. It takes in the dried-up soil, the prickly pear, the palm-
tree and the distant mountain, but it always misses the peasant hoeing at his patch. He is the
same colour as the earth, and a great deal less interesting to look at.

It is only because of this that the starved countries of Asia and Africa are accepted as tourist
resorts. No one would think of running cheap trips to the Distressed Areas. But where the
human beings have brown skins their poverty is simply not noticed. What does Morocco
mean to a Frenchman? An orange-grove or a job in government service. Or to an
Englishman? Camels, castles, palm-trees, Foreign Legionnaires, brass trays and bandits.
One could probably live here for years without noticing that for nine-tenths of the people the
reality of life is an endless, back-breaking struggle to wring a little food out of an eroded soil.
Most of Morocco is so desolate that no wild animal bigger than a hare can live on it. Huge
areas which were once covered with forest have turned into a treeless waste where the soil
is exactly like broken-up brick. Nevertheless a good deal of it is cultivated, with frightful
labour. Everything is done by hand. Long lines of women, bent double like inverted capital
Ls, work their way slowly across the fields, tearing up the prickly weeds with their hands, and
the peasant gathering lucerne for fodder pulls it up stalk by stalk instead of reaping it, thus
saving an inch or two on each stalk. The plough is a wretched wooden thing, so frail that one
can easily carry it on one's shoulder, and fitted underneath with a rough iron spike which
stirs the soil to a depth of about four inches. This is as much as the strength of the animals is
equal to. It is usual to plough with a cow and a donkey yoked together. Two donkeys would
not be quite strong enough, but on the other hand two cows would cost a little more to feed.
The peasants possess no harrows, they merely plough the soil several times over in different
directions, finally leaving it in rough furrows, after which the whole field has to be shaped
with hoes into small oblong patches, to conserve water. Except for a day or two after the rare
rainstorms there is never enough water. Along the edges of the fields channels are hacked
out to a depth of thirty or forty feet to get at the tiny trickles which run through the subsoil.

Every afternoon a file of very old women passes down the road outside my house, each
carrying a load of firewood. All of them are mummified with age and the sun, and all of them
are tiny. It seems to be generally the case in primitive communities that the women, when
they get beyond a certain age, shrink to the size of children. One day a poor old creature
who could not have been more than four feet tall crept past me under a vast load of wood. I
stopped her and put a five-sou piece (a little more than a farthing) into her hand. She
answered with a shrill wail, almost a scream, which was partly gratitude but mainly surprise. I
suppose that from her point of view, by taking any notice of her, I seemed almost to be
violating a law of nature. She accepted her status as an old woman, that is to say as a beast
of burden. When a family is travelling it is quite usual to see a father and a grown-up son
riding ahead on donkeys, and an old woman following on foot, carrying the baggage.

But what is strange about these people is their invisibility. For several weeks, always at
about the same time of day, the file of old women had hobbled past the house with their
firewood, and though they had registered themselves on my eyeballs I cannot truly say that I
had seen them. Firewood was passing — that was how I saw it. It was only that one day I
happened to be walking behind them, and the curious up-and-down motion of a load of wood
drew my attention to the human being underneath it. Then for the first time I noticed the poor
old earth-coloured bodies, bodies reduced to bones and leathery skin, bent double under the
crushing weight. Yet I suppose I had not been five minutes on Moroccan soil before I noticed
the overloading of the donkeys and was infuriated by it. There is no question that the
donkeys are damnably treated. The Moroccan donkey is hardly bigger than a St Bernard
dog, it carries a load which in the British army would be considered too much for a fifteen-
hands mule, and very often its pack-saddle is not taken off its back for weeks together. But
what is peculiarly pitiful is that it is the most willing creature on earth, it follows its master like
a dog and does not need either bridle or halter. After a dozen years of devoted work it
suddenly drops dead, whereupon its master tips it into the ditch and the village dogs have
torn its guts out before it is cold.

This kind of thing makes one's blood boil, whereas — on the whole — the plight of the human
beings does not. I am not commenting, merely pointing to a fact. People with brown skins are
next door to invisible. Anyone can be sorry for the donkey with its galled back, but it is generally
owing to some kind of accident if one even notices the old woman under her load of sticks.

As the storks flew northward the Negroes were marching southward — a long, dusty
column, infantry, screw-gun batteries and then more infantry, four or five thousand men in
all, winding up the road with a clumping of boots and a clatter of iron wheels.
They were Senegalese, the blackest Negroes in Africa, so black that sometimes it is difficult
to see whereabouts on their necks the hair begins. Their splendid bodies were hidden in
reach-me-down khaki uniforms, their feet squashed into boots that looked like blocks of
wood, and every tin hat seemed to be a couple of sizes too small. It was very hot and the
men had marched a long way. They slumped under the weight of their packs and the
curiously sensitive black faces were glistening with sweat.

As they went past a tall, very young Negro turned and caught my eye. But the look he gave
me was not in the least the kind of look you might expect. Not hostile, not contemptuous, not
sullen, not even inquisitive. It was the shy, wide-eyed Negro look, which actually is a look of
profound respect. I saw how it was. This wretched boy, who is a French citizen and has
therefore been dragged from the forest to scrub floors and catch syphilis in garrison towns,
actually has feelings of reverence before a white skin. He has been taught that the white
race are his masters, and he still believes it.

But there is one thought which every white man (and in this connection it doesn't matter
twopence if he calls himself a Socialist) thinks when he sees a black army marching past.
‘How much longer can we go on kidding these people? How long before they tum their guns
in the other direction?’

It was curious, really. Every white man there has this thought stowed somewhere or other in
his mind. I had it, so had the other onlookers, so had the officers on their sweating chargers
and the white NCOs marching in the ranks. It was a kind of secret which we all knew and
were too clever to tell; only the Negroes didn't know it. And really it was almost like watching
a flock of cattle to see the long column, a mile or two miles of armed men, flowing peacefully
up the road, while the great white birds drifted over them in the opposite direction, glittering
like scraps of paper.
Source: https://orwell.ru/library/articles/marrakech/english/e_mar

1. What is the essay about?

2. After reading the article, what is your impression about the place and the life
there?
3. What moral and social issues were presented in the essay?
4. How does the article affect you? How does the author achieve this?
5. How was the essay organized? Was the organization effective in conveying
the idea? Explain your answer.

Task 5: Read to Write

Now here is a sample critique of the literary journalism that you have just read.
Read and answer the questions that follow:

Sample Critique:
George Orwell's politically charged essay “Marrakech” uses a memorable style to highlight a
number of important social and moral issues. Writing in 1939, in the shadow of oncoming
World War II, Orwell uses word choice, vivid imagery, rhetorical questions and tone to
expose the evils of colonialism, highlight the inhumane treatment of women in the Arab
world and explore the deep Anti-Semitic feeling in Morocco.

This essay sends important and powerful messages to the reader, and its main themes still
appeal to the people of the modern world: that poverty, intolerance, racial discrimination and
subjugation of a nation by force have severe consequences for the lives of ordinary people.
In the opening paragraph Orwell cleverly uses the stylistic technique of imagery to establish
the unhygienic living conditions of Marrakech, one of the consequences of colonialism. “As
the corpse went past the flies left the restaurant table in a cloud and rushed after it but they
came back a few minutes later.” Orwell uses a metaphor to compare the flies to a cloud,
highlighting the sheer volume of them. They follow the decaying dead body, yet they return
to the restaurant as it is just as unsanitary as the dead body and provides them with the
opportunity of food. Orwell compares the burial of the dead body in Marrakech to the the
type of burial he is used to viewing in Europe, his tone shows that he feels sympathy for
those living and dying in Marrakech. “No gravestone, no name, no identifying mark of any
kind.” His bleak and rather solemn tone is created via the repetition of “No”. The Moroccans
receive “No” respect due to colonialism, they live and then they die. In they eyes of the
French colonialists there is no “Identifying” factor to each native Moroccan individual, they
are all the same and under colonialism they are all inferior.

Throughout “Marrakech” Orwell uses rhetorical questions as a stylistic technique. Orwell

introduces the reader to the typical view of a stereotypical European during the French
colonialism of Marrakech. “Are they really the same flesh as yourself? Do they really have
names?” Orwell cleverly uses the rhetorical question to convey to the reader the idiocy of
those who think these questions, in other words the French Colonialists who Orwell believes
regard themselves as superior to the native Morrocans and that the natives of Morroco are
not human beings. The most common technique used by Orwell to create a memorable style
throughout “Marrakech”, is word choice.

Orwell uses word choice and anecdote to convey the poverty of the Jewish people
throughout Morroco. He tells us of a “frenzied rush of Jews... all clamouring for a cigarette.”
The word choice of “clamouring” and “frenzied” is highly effective as it shows how desperate
they truly are and that they view a mere cigarette as a luxury. The fact that “Even a blind
man... came crawling out, groping in the air with his hands.” truly highlights this. Moreover,
Orwell's deception of the Jews reveals something of a much darker nature. Not only do the
French colonialists look down on the Jewish Morrocans, the non-Jewish look down upon
them as well. Orwell is showing that colonialism has a knock on effect and that the French
bullying the Moroccans has led to the Moroccans bullying the Jews in essence.

Overall through “Marrakech” George Orwell seeks to persuade the user that Colonialism is
truly wrong and that it has various terrible effects on all who it touches. Through “Marrakech”
he is showing that Colonialism isn't simply a matter of French superiority but that Colonialism
has caused divides between groups of Moroccans themselves such as the Jewish
Moroccans being as even lesser beings than the already sub-human non-Jewish Moroccan.

In conclusion, George Orwells' non-fiction essay “Marrakech” highlights an extremely

important social issue: the evils of Colonialism. He successfully conveys through; word
choice, vivid imagery, rhetorical questions and tone that colonialism has a disastrous knock
on effect on the lives of ordinary people. Although this essay was written a number of years
ago, I still feel that it relates to modern society and that many lessons can be learned from
“Marrakech”. We as human beings need to realise that no matter what faith, skin colour or
income that we are all equals in this world – there are no superior beings a there are no
lower beings. We are the human race, one amazing race at that, if and only if, we can get
past these nonsensical beliefs of superiority then the world would be a much brighter – and
happier place. A place George Orwell would truly be proud of.
Source: http://brapson10.weebly.com/uploads/1/2/0/1/12019443/marrakech.pdf
 1. How did the writer present his critique? Describe how he presented the
following:
a. Introduction
b. Body
c. Conclusion
2. Identify the good and weak points of Orwell’s essay pointed out in the critique.
3. What insights did the writer gain from Orwell’s journalistic essay?

REFLECT & SHARE

Media has become the main source of information offered thru different platforms.
Social media in particular has become the main avenue for “freedom of
expression” and “independence”. Without scrutinizing the content of what you have
watched and read will lead you to misinterpretation of ideas. As a beginner, put
some effort to write intelligently before posting any comment or article in social
media. This is a good start to eventually become a literary journalist.

TASK 6: “Finally I can Write”

Directions: Read the following article and write a commentary/ critique of the essay.
Consider the guide in critiquing a journalistic essay.

AFTER MIRACLE REUNION, INDIAN MOM, SON FIND DIVIDE

By Kristen Gelineau and Ravi Nessman, Associated Press
June 10, 2012

KHANDWA, India —
Saroo Brierley pulled up to the train station and stepped out of his car into the chaotic
landscape that had haunted his dreams.

The swerving bicycles, noisy three-wheelers and vendors’ pushcarts crowding the streets of
this Indian town were half a world from where he lived in Australia’s tranquil island state of
Tasmania. And yet he knew that once - a lifetime ago - he had called this place home.
It was Feb. 12, 2012, and he hadn’t been here in nearly 25 years, since that nightmarish day
when his brother vanished and a train whisked him away from everything he knew. Since he
had ended up an orphan in distant Calcutta, before an Australian couple adopted him and
gave him a second chance at family.

It took years of searching the Internet before he finally found his way back to this town. After
all this time, would his family still be here? If they were, what would they say? What would
he say?

This is the second in a two-part series.

His loved ones in Australia had warned him not to expect too much. He remembered the
cramped house he had left behind, the poverty, the hunger. He’d spent years wondering
about the fate of his family, and tried now to prepare himself for the worst.

He stood still, drinking it all in. Through his now-adult eyes, everything seemed much smaller
than in his memory. But the smells and sounds were the same, and the layout almost exactly
as he remembered: The road near the train tracks, the fountain he’d spotted on an Internet
satellite image. He began to walk, following twisty pathways etched into his brain as a child.
Saroo could feel it. His memory was guiding him home.

Fatima struggled to take her usual nap after returning from her morning routine of cleaning
neighbors’ homes and washing their dishes. Her mind was filled with thoughts of Saroo. She
had heard of a man wandering through a nearby neighborhood who had amnesia and
couldn’t find his family.

Could that be her son? Fatima doubted it. She had heard he wasn’t tall like her other
children, but she decided she would find him in the next day or two just to be sure. She gave
up on sleeping and rose from the bed she had borrowed from a neighbor, rolling off a
mattress so wafer thin that a gentle hand could feel the metal slats underneath.
She sat on her doorstep, watching life go by along the alley.

Saroo stared at the house in front of him in shock. One, because it was the place he’d called
home so long ago. Two, because it seemed impossibly tiny; the top of the front door reached
his chest. He was examining the door’s padlock and chain when a woman emerged from the
adjacent house. She asked, in hybrid Hindi-English, if he needed help.

Saroo pulled out a copy of a childhood photo his Australian parents had taken of him. He
showed it to the woman, tried to explain. He said the names of his siblings and mother,
waiting for a flicker of recognition. He felt dread growing in his gut as she stared in silence.
Was his family dead? Had he lost them forever?
More neighbors were gathering. He repeated his pleas. Did someone, anyone, know where
his family was?

A man plucked the photo from Saroo’s hand. “Wait here,” he said, and hurried off. A few
minutes later, he returned.

“Come with me,” he said. “I am going to take you to your mother.”

Saroo was numb as the man guided him around the corner, where three women stood waiting.
He stared at them blankly. Only the woman in the middle seemed remotely familiar.

“This is your mother,” the man said, gesturing toward the woman in the center.
She had been young, in her thirties, the last time he saw her. She looked so much older now.
But behind the weathered face, there was something unmistakable. Unforgettable.

Mother. His mother.

Fatima was still sitting on her doorstep when she heard the words she always knew would
come, but couldn’t believe were actually being spoken.

“Your Saroo is back,” a neighbor screamed, running toward her.

Fatima walked down her alley and saw a mob of people walking up the road as if in a
procession. In the middle stood a man calling out the names of her family.

Of his family.
He rushed to her, and she to him. They grabbed each other and hugged tightly. He couldn’t
find words, so he just held her.

The scar from the long-ago horse kick was still there in his forehead, and he had the same
chin dimple that marked all her children, but Fatima would have recognized him anyway,
even though he was now 30. She led him by the hand to her new home and hugged him for
what felt like an hour, cried and caressed his head.

“My Saroo is back,” she said. “The almighty has finally answered my prayers. He has
brought the joy back. He has finally brought my Saroo back.”

Saroo was overwhelmed. Tears slid down his face.

He wanted to know whether Fatima had looked for him. She told him about her search and
how she had never given up hope. He told her that when he went through tough times, he
would think of his family in India and go into a corner and cry. Saroo was devastated to learn
about his brother Guddu’s grisly death on the train tracks.

Fatima called Kallu and Shakila with the news of their brother’s return. Kallu raced over on
his motorcycle.

“You will be happy now,” he told his mother. “Your son is back.”

Saroo broke away to call his girlfriend. Lisa Williams, who had spent endless nights watching
him hunt online for his hometown, was still asleep when the phone rang.

Saroo had done it: He had found his family.

Williams shot out of bed. “What?!” she screamed. He repeated the words. She began to
dance around the room. Closure, she thought. At last.

Closure is complicated.

Saroo’s questions about his family’s fate were answered, but new ones about how to deal
with the future took their place.

Fatima’s quest was over too, but how much did her lost son want to be in her life?

Enough to satisfy a mother who never gave up on finding him?

Can a mother and son ripped apart, separated by decades, thousands of miles and different
cultures, fit back together again?

Their first problem: They couldn’t communicate.

Fatima was illiterate and knew no English. Saroo remembered only a tiny handful of Hindi
words. It took them hours to find a neighbor to translate.

Over the next few days, they communicated through hand gestures. Not understanding
anything happening around him, Saroo would sit quietly and watch his family. If an English
speaker dropped by, they would chat.

He was unfamiliar in other ways as well. He drank bottled water so he wouldn’t get sick from
the hose everyone else drank from outside. Fatima worried that he wouldn’t like the food she
made, though he said it was fine. Even his name was strange. They pronounced it `SHEH
roo’ in keeping with the local Hindi dialect; He had anglicized it to `SAH roo.’

They hired a photographer to document their reunion. In one photo, Fatima, wearing a sari,
tenderly cradles his face in her hand and kisses his cheek. Saroo, wearing a pink T-shirt and
jeans, smiles wide and looks at the camera.

Their 10 days together went by so fast - too fast. Local media kept trying to interview him.
Neighbors stopped by to meet the boy who had miraculously returned. There was little time
for the family to be alone.

Suddenly, Fatima was standing with Saroo outside the airport terminal, wanting to drag him
back home with her. He said goodbye, then walked inside to check in. It wasn’t long before
he came back out, to see if she was still there. She was, and waited with him until he finally
had to leave. He promised he would return.

In Tasmania, Saroo faced more changes. The media frenzy over his story intensified. He
hired an agent to juggle interview requests. Movie producers began calling. Publishing
houses battled over the book rights.

He went back to work at his family’s hose supply business, and hunted for a house with his
girlfriend. He turned off his phone at night to silence the relentless ringing.

He began sending Fatima $100 a month, so she could quit her job cleaning homes and
washing dishes that pays her about 1,500 rupees ($30) a month. But she hasn’t quit her job
and hasn’t touched the money he put in her bank account. She insists she won’t take his
money unless he gives it to her in person.

She seems to want him to care for his mother as a good Indian boy should, seeing to her
every need, following her commands and revering her above any job, girlfriend or wife.
That’s what many sons are brought up to do in India. Not in Australia.

She still lives in her tiny concrete home with peeling whitewash and a roof of bamboo and
corrugated metal, surviving on subsidized grain, near-rotten onions she buys at a discount
and stale bread she softens in lentil stew. She frets that her poverty might embarrass Saroo
or his Australian parents.

The gulf between mother and son remains vast.

Fatima and Shakila beg a visitor to call Saroo for them.

The conversation, through a translator, begins like so many other mother-son calls. She
asks if he is eating. Then she complains he doesn’t call enough.

“Why don’t you talk to us?” she asks. “At least ask how your mother is doing.”

They don’t speak the same language, so what’s the point in calling, he says. When he does
call, he has trouble getting through. Meanwhile, his sister calls him, sometimes in the middle
of work, sometimes in the middle of the night. She never speaks, he says, frustrated. It’s like
a crank call.

Fatima says she left him a message and cried when he didn’t call her back. The ache for her
son is clear in her voice.

Saroo insists he sends text messages to his brother to have translated and passed on to her.
“I’m not able to talk to them all the time, it’s just hard for me,” he says.
She grows sarcastic.

“Take care of the family you are staying with, don’t bother with this family here,” she says.

They need to understand the difficult position he is in, he says.

“I’ve got to be very careful with everything, you see. I don’t want to upset my family here and
give too much attention to my family in India,” he says.

Then he announces he is coming back. He is getting money together and is going to buy her
a house.

“No, no!” she says angrily. Don’t bother coming. I will go away for a few months and no one
will be here to see you, she says, voice dripping with acid.

“Just stay calm and be happy that I’m alive and you know where I am,” he says in exasperation.

Fatima is in such a fury, the translator stops interpreting her words. Her rage is
incomprehensible to her perplexed son.

“I was hoping that my son would come back. How could I have known that my son would not
come back,” she hisses into the phone. “With my heart and my soul I prayed to the almighty,
I went walking barefoot for your sake. Why will my prayers not be answered? You continue
staying there, son. If you think of a family, think only about that side of the family.”

Saroo doesn’t want to overthink it. He wants to revel in the joy of their remarkable reunion.
For him, it has been a miracle punctuated by a happy ending.

“It’s sort of taken a weight off my shoulders,” he says. “Instead of going to bed at night and
thinking, `How is my family? Are they still alive?’ I know in my head now I can let those
questions rest.”

He hopes to visit India once or twice a year, but he cannot move back. He has other
responsibilities, other family and a whole other life in Tasmania.
He is Australian now.

“This is where I live,” he says. “When I come back, whether it’s sooner or later, then we can
start building our relationship again.”

Fatima is confused and frustrated.

She doesn’t want him to move back here, where there is nothing. But she wants to be with
him. Maybe she can move to Australia, she says. She adds sternly that she would ban all
girlfriends from his house.

A few minutes later she softens. She couldn’t really move away from her life here to an
unfamiliar place where no one can talk with her, she says.

At least, and at last, Saroo’s return has brought her “mental peace,” she says. She tries to
understand that he has new parents, new expectations and a new life a world away.

She just wants him to see her once in a while, to call her occasionally, even if they can only
speak a few sentences to each other.
“For the moment,” she says, “it’s enough for me that I went to him. And he called me
Amma.” Mother.
This story was reported by Nessman from Khandwa, India, and Gelineau from Sydney, Australia. It is
based on multiple interviews with Saroo Brierley, his girlfriend Lisa Williams, mother Fatima Munshi,
sister Shakila Khan, a representative of the Indian Society for Sponsorship and Adoption,
photographs of Saroo and Fatima’s reunion, and the reporters’ own observations from watching and
listening to them.
Source: https://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/sdut-after-miracle-reunion-indian-mom-son-find-
divide-2012jun10-story.html

Rubric for Commentary/Critique Essay

POINTS
CRITERIA DESCRIPTION POINTS
OBTAINED
The content was well-thought of
Content and was relevant to what is asked 10
to do so.
The paper was well-written with
Organization 10
ideas easily conveyed to readers
Development Points are thoroughly developed 5
TOTAL 25
 GLOSSARY
The following terms used in this module are defined as follows:

TERM

COMPARATIVE ESSAY A comparative essay is a composition made of many

paragraphs that try to explain how two subjects are either
similar or different.
DOCUMENTARY A documentary is a television or radio programme, or a film,
which shows real events or provides information about a
particular subject.
LITERARY Literary journalism is a form of nonfiction that combines
JOURNALISM factual reporting with narrative techniques and stylistic
strategies traditionally associated with fiction.
JOURNALISTIC ESSAY A journalistic essay is a combination of journalistic reporting
and personal essay writing. A newspaper article contains
straight journalistic reporting most of the time, while a
personal essay tells a story.
JOURNALISTIC TEXT Journalistic text, is a text graphically marked off in the
newspaper, which reports real and recent events of public
interest.

REFERENCES
After Miracle Reunion, Indian Mom, Son Find Divide. (2012 June 10). San Diego Union Tribune. .
Retrieved from https://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/sdut-after-miracle-reunion-indian-mom-
son-find-divide-2012jun10-story.html
Baronda, Andrew John C. Creative NonFiction. Manila, Philippines, 2016
Kinneavy, James L, Warriner, John E. Elements of Writing. Orlando,Florida USA. 1998
Myers, D.G. “Literary Journalism”: What It Is, What It Is Not. May 4,
2012.https://www.commentarymagazine.com/literary/literary –journalism.
https://orwell.ru/library/articles/marrakech/english/e_mar
I witness: Walang Maiiwan,dokumentaryo ni Kara David. November 5, 2016, video 26:49,
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TZ73dKG_REo
ttps://kenyayote.com/literary-journalism-what-is-literary-journalism-and-history-of-literary-journalism/

Prepared by:

EDRIAN S. SAPUL
Pagasa NHS
Division of Oriental Mindoro
Evaluated by:

MARY ROSE D. DILAY JOSEPH F. JAMBALOS, Ed.D.

SHS Master Teacher II Education Program Supervisor
Baco NHS, Division of Oriental Mindoro Schools Division of Oriental Mindoro