Professional Documents
Culture Documents
21st Century Literature from the Philippines and the World (Grade 11)
Learning Activity Sheet (LAS) 1
First Edition, 2020
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Quarter 2, Week
1
I. Learning Competency
Writing a close analysis and critical interpretation of literary texts, applying a
reading approach, and doing an adaptation of these require from the learner
the ability to identify: representative texts and authors from Asia, North America,
and Europe.
1
Here are the steps to do the close analysis and critical interpretation of
literary text.
Step 1: Read the passage. Take notes as you read.
Step 2: Analyze the passage
Step 3: Develop a descriptive thesis
Step 4: Construct an argument about the passage
Step 5: Develop an outline based on your thesis.
Now that you have learned the steps on how to analyze the texts, you are
going to write a close analysis and interpretation of a literary text from the continents
of Asia, North America, and Europe. Look at the table below and see the
representative texts and authors from these continents.
21st Century Representative Texts and Authors
Continent Title of Texts Authors Nationality/Country
of Origin
A. Asia
B.North America
C. Europe
Machines Like Me Ian Russell Aldershot, England
McEwan
Changing My Mind
2 Zadie Smith, London, England
(Sadie Smith)
Cloud Atlas David Stephen Worcestershire,
Mitchell England
The History Boys Allan Bennet Yorkshire, England
3
IV. Activity Proper
Exercise 1
Instructions: Write a close analysis and critical interpretation of the poem after
reading the text written by the 21st Century Filipino writer, Eileen R.Tabios. Consider
the given guide below to express your answers in paragraph form. Do it on your
answer sheet.
1. Title of the poem under analysis
2. Author of the poem
3. Purpose or topic statement (Thesis statement that indicates your
reaction to the poem)
4. Summary or brief description of the poem that you are analyzing
critically.
5. Make your evaluation or/and interpretation of the poem. Consider the
guiding questions below to determine craft and structure of the text.
• How is the information organized (e.g. time topic, cause/effect, compare/contrast, persuasion)
• What genre does the selection represent?
• Whose voice did the author choose as narrator?
• From what point of view/perspective is this written?
• What language is used—technical, dialect, variant spellings, archaic words, etc.?
• What are the style, mood, and tone?
• What word choice, imagery and figures of speech (e.g. simile, metaphor, alliteration, irony,
repetition, personification, etc.) does the author use?
I Do
By Eileen R. Tabios
“I do not know English”—from “I Do Not” by Michael Palmer
“Marunong akong mag-ingles” (I do know English) —any 21st-century Filipino poet I do know English.
I do know English for I have something to say about this latest peace stirring between a crack that’s
split a sidewalk traversing a dusty border melting at noon beneath an impassive sun.
I do know English and, therefore, when hungry, can ask for more than minimum wage, pointing
repeatedly at my mouth and yours.
Such a gesture can only mean what it means: I do not want to remain hungry and I am looking at your
mouth.
I shall call you “Master” with a lack of irony; lift my cotton blouse; cup my breasts to offer them to your
eyes, your lips, your tongue; keen at the moon hiding at 11 a.m. to surface left tendon on my neck.
For your teeth. And so on.
I do know English and so cannot comprehend why you write me no letters even as you unfailingly
read mine.
Those where I write of the existence of a parallel universe to create a haven when your silence
persists in this world I was forced to inherit.
This does not mean, I cannot differentiate between a reflection and a shadow, a threnody and a
hiccup, the untrimmed bougainvillea bush mimicking a fire and the lawn lit by a burning cross.
I can prove Love exists by measuring increased blood flow to the brain’s anterior cingulated cortex,
the middle insula, the putamen and the caudate nucleus.
Nor is “putamen” a pasta unless I confirm to you that my weak eyesight misread “puttanesca” as the
crimson moon began to rise, paling as it ascends for fate often exacts a price.
I can see an almond eye peer behind the fracture on a screen and know it is not you from the wafting
scent of crushed encomiums.
I can remind you of the rose petals I mailed to you after releasing them from the padded cell between
my thighs.
I slipped the petals inside a cream envelope embossed in gold with the seal of a midtown Manhattan
hotel whose façade resembles a seven-layered wedding cake. Which we shall share only through the
happiness of others. Which does not cancel Hope.
I can recite all of your poems as I memorized them through concept as well as sound.
I speak of a country disappearing and the impossibility of its replacement except within the tobacco-
scented clench of your embrace.
I can tell you I am weary of games, though they continue. Manila’s streets are suffused with protesters
clamoring for an adulterer’s impeachment. Their t-shirts are white to symbolize their demand for
“purity.” Space contains all forms, which means it lack geometry. My lucid tongue has tasted the dust
from monuments crumbling simply because seasons change.
Because I do know English, I have been variously called Miss Slanted Vagina, The Mail Order Bride,
The One With The Shoe Fetish, The Squat Brunette Who Wears A Plaid Blazer Over A Polka-Dot
Blouse, The Maid.
When I hear someone declare war while observing a yacht race in San Diego, I understand how
“currency” becomes “debased.”
They have named it The Tension Between The Popular Vote And The Electoral College.
Remember
Critical analysis is a careful examination and evaluation of a text, image, or
other work or performance. Close reading is deep analysis of how a literary text works;
it is both a reading process and something you include in a literary analysis paper,
though in a refined form.
To do the analysis, you consider the following steps: First, read the passage and
take notes as you read; then, analyze the passage; next, develop a descriptive thesis;
after that, construct an argument about the passage; and finally, develop an outline
based on your thesis.
V. Reflection
1. What significant insights have you learned from the exercise above?
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