SOUTHERN BAPTIST COLLEGE, INC.

HIGH SCHOOL
SY 2024-2025
ENGLISH MODULE

Quarter: 1 Week: 6 Date: July 21-25, 2025

Grade: 12 Subject: 21st Cen. Lit. Strand/s: ABM/TVL
Teacher: Mrs. Marilyn P. Tungala

Objectives: At the end of the lesson, the learners are expected to:
a. Define each literary theory or approach and explain its context and significance
b. Produce a creative presentation applying the concepts learned from each theory or
approach
c. Express a more critical understanding and a deeper appreciation of literary texts
through the use of various theories or approaches

Lesson: LITEARARY THEORIES AND APPROACHES

1. FORMALISM
Definition
● a way to understand and enjoy a text for its own inherent value
● examines a text as a self-sufficient object with formal elements and laws of its own that could
be studied
● emphasizes close reading
● does not treat a text as an expression of social, religious, or political ideas; neither does it
reduce the text to being a promotional effort for some cause or belief
● espouses the use of defamiliarization—to give vitality to language that might otherwise be all
too predictable, to look again at an image in an effort to take in the unexpected, to heighten the
reader’s awareness of literary language as separate and distinct from everyday language
Historical Context
● a reaction against the attention teachers paid to the biographical and historical context of a
work, thereby diminishing the attention given to the text itself
Major Figure/s
● Viktor Shklovsky, “Art as Technique” (1917)
Importance or Relevance
● encourage students to be careful and attentive readers
● inspire an appreciate for literature for its own sake

2. PSYCHOLOGICAL CRITICISM
Definition
● applies psychological theories by Freud, Jung, etc. to the different works of literature
● analyzes the text’s characters, plot, themes, and other aspects from a psychological
perspective
● does not contradict other approaches, but can be used as a complement to other approaches.
Historical Context
● Sigmund Freud applied his theories to the interpretation of literature and his first essay was a
review of William Jensen’s “Delusions and Dreams in Jensen’s Gradiva” (1907).
● Ernest Jones used Freud’s approach in his essay, “Hamlet” (1910).
Major Figure/s
● Sigmund Freud, “The Interpretation of Dreams” (1900)
● Carl Jung
● Ernest Jones’ “Hamlet” (1910)
● used Freud’s approach to discuss Hamlet’s motives
Importance or Relevance
● deepens the understanding of literary themes and provides a framework for more perceptive
character analyses

3. MARXIST CRITICISM
Definition
● a way to understand and appreciate a text based on how characters and their relationships
typify and reveal class conflict, the socioeconomic system, or the
politics of a time and place
● emphasizes the political unconscious and the exploitation and oppression buried in a work as
well as ideologies being espoused
● operates as a warning system that alerts readers to social wrongs
Historical Context
● reaches back to the thinking of German philosopher Karl Marx and political economist Friedrich
Engels
● Marx and Engels identified class struggle as the driving force behind his- tory and anticipated
that it would lead to a revolution in which workers would overturn capitalists, take control of
economic production, and abolish private property by turning it over to the government to be
distributed fairly
Major Figure/s
● Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, The Communist Manifesto (1848)
Importance or Relevance
● encourage students to be aware of the political and historical forces that influence the
production and consumption of literary texts
● inspire an appreciation for literature as a springboard for the development of a political
consciousness

4. FEMINIST CRITICISM AND QUEER THEORY

Definition
● operates under the assumption that society is patriarchal, and creates an imbalance of power
that marginalizes certain groups, particularly women andmembers of the LGBTQ+ communities,
enforcing the same gender and sexual norms for all
● analyzes power structures that make certain groups the other (the inferior), reject it, and work
to abolish limiting stereotypes of certain groups
● seeks to expose patriarchal premises and the prejudices they create, challenging traditional,
static ways of seeing gender and identity
Historical Context
● a reaction against the centuries-old, dominant Western culture that operated under the
assumption that women were lesser beings
● emerging alongside feminist criticism was a movement toward queer theory criticism
Major Figure/s
● Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex (1949)
Importance or Relevance
● encourage students to question harmful stereotypes, prejudices, and biases
● inspire an appreciation of literature as a site for representation and empowerment of
oppressed groups
encourages readers to uncover the rich, complex, and diverse possibilities of a text
● leads to not just the understanding of the text but also of the self

5. READER-RESPONSE CRITICISM
Definition
● literary texts do not have a fixed singular meaning and may vary from reader to reader. The
reader’s circumstances at the time of the reading may also influence their interpretation of the
text.
● does not imply that all interpretations are valid
● readers are active participants in the creation of the meaning of the text
● the emphasis is on the experience of the readers, more than the text or the authorial intent
Historical Context
● In the 1920s, I.A. Richards recognized the possibilities of a wide variety of interpretations of a
single text. However, deviated from being an actual reader-response theorist when he ranked his
students’ papers on the accuracy of their interpretation, which was based on what he deemed as
the correct interpretation.
● In the 1930s, Louise Rosenblatt started theorizing on the role a reader plays in the
interpretation of a text. Formalist theorists ignored her earlier works. In 1978, she released “The
Reader, The Text, the Poem” and introduced a transactional theory of reading.
Major Figure/s
● Louise Rosenblatt, “The Reader, The Text, the Poem” (1978)
Importance or Relevance
● encourages readers to uncover the rich, complex, and diverse possibilities of a text
● leads to not just the understanding of the text but also of the self

6. DECONSTRUCTION
Definition
● is also known as poststructuralism
● challenges the way Western civilization has conceived of the world since Plato and specifically
overturns the principles that have provided basic beliefs about truth and meaning since the
seventeenth-century French philosopher, scientist, and mathematician René Descartes (1596–
1650) applied the rational, inductive methods of science to philosophy
Historical Context
● it succeeds structuralism—the movement that it both incorporates and undermines— and
those that structuralism itself challenged
Major Figure/s
● Jean Jacques Derrida (1966)- father of deconstructionism
● Plato
● René Descartes (1596–1650)
● Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900)
Importance or Relevance
It helps many authors to analyze the contradictions inherent in all schools of thought in as far as
analyses or interpretations are concerned

7. NEW HISTORICISM
Definition
● recognizes that subjects (people) are socially constructed and as such, cultural critics work to
change power structures where they are unequal, making the
subjugated and marginalized more visible
Historical Context
● historians have traditionally been concerned with finding out what really happened at a given
time and place as well as establishing factual accuracy of the
stories that make up the record of the human past so that they could establish that the account
they rendered was a valid delineation of what had happened
● challenged and resisted assumptions and goals of traditional historicism such as denying that
anyone can ever know exactly what happened at a given time and place
● all history is subjectively known and set down, colored by the cultural context of the recorder—
usually a person of power—thus leaving untold stories of those who were powerless
Major Figure/s
● Stephen Greenblatt, who launched and first used the term ‘new historicism’
● Michel Foucault
Importance or Relevance
students become intentional in studying the writer’s history as well as their own to generate
more meaningful interpretations

8. POSTCOLONIALISM
Definition
● examines how one group views another, colored by their own cultural, political, and religious
backgrounds, leading them to depict those unlike themselves as inferior and objectionable
● uses canonical counter-discourse—a process in which one examines basic assumptions of a
canonical text, and unveils colonialist assumptions, subverting the text for post-colonial purposes
● investigates the relationship between a text and how its context illuminates not only the given
work but also the culture that produced and consumed it
Historical Context
● a reaction to its predecessor, colonialism, and then its successor, neocolonialism
Major Figure/s
● Edward Said, Orientalism (1978)
Importance or Relevance
● students become critical of the validity of narratives that show problematic, harmful, or overly
generalized depictions certain groups as “inferior” or “other

9. ECOCRITICISM
Definition
● “the study of the relationship between literature and the physical environment” (Cheryll
Glotfelty)
● “the study of literature and environment from an interdisciplinary point of view where all
sciences come together to analyze the environment and brainstorm possible solutions for the
correction of the contemporary environmental situation” (Lawrence Buell)
Historical Context
● had its nascence in the environmentalist movement of the late 1960s and 1970s which
primarily focused on what was known as “nature writing”
Major Figure/s
● Lawrence Buell
● Cheryll Glotfelty
● Simon C. Estok
● Harold Fromm
● William Howarth
● William Rueckert
● Suellen Campbell
● Michael P. Branch
Importance or Relevance
● encourages a nuanced view of the environment around us and, particularly, the ways in which
it can be saved from pollution and damage

ACTIVITY 1: “Text Re-Reading Journal”

Express a more critical understanding and a deeper appreciation of literary texts through the use
of various theories or approaches

Description: Analyze the text three times, each through a different lens (e.g., Formalist,
Marxist, Reader-Response). In each journal entry, answer:

1. How does this theory help you interpret the story differently?
2. What does the story suggest about society, identity, or the self?
3. What deeper meaning or appreciation do you gain through this lens?

TEXT: “The Window”

Every morning, old Mr. Ramos sat by the window of Room 203. The hospital was quiet, save for
the occasional footsteps of nurses on the tiled floors or the soft beeping of machines that marked
time more faithfully than any clock. His body had grown frail, his legs no longer carried him, and
his hands trembled as he lifted his cup of lukewarm tea. But his eyes—his eyes still searched the
world beyond the glass.

He had made it a ritual.

Sunrise at six-thirty. The bakery across the street opened at seven. Children in blue and white
uniforms rushed past by seven-fifteen, sometimes laughing, sometimes dragging their feet.
Vendors pushed their carts, calling out the names of sweet breads and boiled peanuts. Cars
honked, and life buzzed.

Each scene outside the window was a reminder:

“The world still goes on,” he would whisper, a smile playing on his lips.

But one Tuesday, he woke to silence and darkness. The window was covered. White curtains,
thick and sterile, blocked the sunlight.

He rang for the nurse.

“What happened to the window?” he asked, voice dry like crumpled paper.

The nurse didn’t meet his eyes.

“They’re renovating the wing, sir. For safety.”

“Just for a day?”

“Maybe a few,” she said before leaving, her voice already fading.

The room felt smaller. Colder. The minutes dragged. He sipped his tea and waited—for the
bakery bell, for the footsteps of children, for someone to pull the curtains open again.

But no one did.

By Thursday, he stopped asking. By Friday, he stopped looking.

Instead of watching the world, he stared at the ceiling. He measured time by medicine and
meals. He no longer whispered anything at all.

The machines still beeped. The hallway was still clean. The staff was still polite. But the window—
the window that once let the world in—was now just a wall.

And so, the world beyond kept turning, but Mr. Ramos no longer turned with it.
 ACTIVITY 2

Formative Question: How do you apply theories in critiquing a text?

Instructions: Group the students into three. Let them read the poem, then the students will
deepen and enrich their critical understanding and appreciation of the text by applying the
concepts learned from each theory or approach in meaning-making and critiquing below.

Running Orders
by Lena Khalaf Tuffaha

They call us now,

before they drop the bombs.
The phone rings
and someone who knows my first name
calls and says in perfect Arabic
“This is David.”
And in my stupor of sonic booms and glass-shattering symphonies
still smashing around in my head
I think, Do I know any Davids in Gaza?
They call us now to say
Run.

You have 58 seconds from the end of this message.

Your house is next.
They think of it as some kind of
war-time courtesy.
It doesn’t matter that
there is nowhere to run to.

It means nothing that the borders are closed

and your papers are worthless
and mark you only for a life sentence
in this prison by the sea
and the alleyways are narrow
and there are more human lives
packed one against the other
more than any other place on earth
Just run.

We aren’t trying to kill you.

It doesn’t matter that
you can’t call us back to tell us
the people we claim to want aren’t in your house
that there’s no one here
except you and your children
who were cheering for Argentina
sharing the last loaf of bread for this week
counting candles left in case the power goes out.
It doesn’t matter that you have children.
You live in the wrong place
and now is your chance to run
to nowhere.

It doesn’t matter
that 58 seconds isn’t long enough
to find your wedding album
or your son’s favorite blanket
or your daughter’s almost completed college application
or your shoes
or to gather everyone in the house.
It doesn’t matter what you had planned.
It doesn’t matter who you are.
Prove you’re human.
Prove you stand on two legs.
Run.
The following questions were constructed to highlight both the focus of each theory or approach and
to compare and contrast them.

1) Formalism
a. Who is the persona? How does the persona’s point of view shape the meaning of the poem?
b. What words or phrases are repeated? Do their meanings change with subsequent use? Or do they
grow more powerful?
c. What images, figures of speech, motifs, etc. are described, extended, elaborated? How do they
work together to create a meaning?
2) Psychological Criticism
a. In the course of the poem, does the persona change? If so, how and why?
b. Does the persona come to understand something not understood at the outset?
c. How is the persona viewed by the other? Do the two views agree?
3) Marxist Criticism
a. Who is the powerful and the powerless in the text?
b. How and why is power denied to one and not the other?
c. Does the poem advocate reform or revolution, either overtly or obliquely? If so, how?
4) Feminist Criticism
a. Who is primarily responsible for making decisions in the world depicted: men or women?
b. Does the poem approve or disapprove, condemn or glorify, the power structure depicted in the
poem?
c. Do you consider the poem typical or atypical of a female writer?
5) Reader-response Criticism
a. How do your previous experiences with poetry set up your expectations for this text and how you
responded to it?
b. What was unsettling in what you read? Why?
c. What are the most vivid images in the poem? What experiences of your own did you use to
visualize these images?
6) Deconstruction
a. What is the binary opposition in the text? How is this shown?
b. What elements in the text contradict each other?
c. Are there any significant omissions of information? What is left unnoticed or unexplained?
7) New Historicism
a. How does the poet’s identity or experiences shape the text?
b. How did political and social events in the time of the poet impact her attitudes, values, or political
views as demonstrated in the text?
c. What ethnic or racial groups, age groups are depicted? Which groups are dominant and why?
8) Postcolonialism
a. Is the poem critical of colonialism, approving of it, or ambivalent about its value?
b. What is the relationship between the colonized and the colonizers in the narrative?
c. Does the narrative look to the past, examine the present, or hypothesize a possible future?
9) Ecocriticism
a. Does the setting function simply as background, or does it play an active role in the text?
b. Does it raise questions or issues about nature or the environment that readers should be
concerned with?
c. Is the landscape a metaphor? What are the links between the persona and the landscape?

ACTIVITY 3

Instructions: Students will be grouped into two. After reading the poem, the students will
reflect which literary theory or approach lends itself well in critiquing the text. Then with a pair, they
will explain their insights and exchange perspectives. After coming up with a common understanding,
the pair will share their discussion with the trainer and/or the rest of the class. Pairs may incorporate
digital tools in doing this activity by recording their conversation as a podcast episode to be shared
online.

Oh Rascal Children Of Gaza

by Khaled Juma

Oh rascal children of Gaza,

You who constantly disturbed me with your screams under my window,
You who filled every morning with rush and chaos,
You who broke my vase and stole the lonely flower on my balcony,
Come back—
And scream as you want,
And break all the vases,
 Steal all the flowers,
Come back,
Just come back…

PRODUCT

Literary Symposium

Instructions: The students will be with the same group and each group will be assigned the formalist
approach and two other literary approaches from the following list:

a. Psychological Criticism
b. Marxist Criticism
c. Feminist Criticism
d. Reader-Response Criticism
e. Deconstruction
f. Cultural Studies: New Historicism
g. Postcolonialism and Multiculturalism
h. Ecocriticism

 Find and choose one (1) 21st century literary text (can be a novel, short story, poem, film, song,
etc.).
 Explore and analyze the themes, contexts, etc. of the text using the three assigned approaches.
 Prepare a 10-minute presentation discussing their reading of the text. They may employ the use
of visual aids to enhance their presentation.
 The other groups must prepare 1-2 questions that will further deepen their understanding of the
text and literary approaches being presented.