GRADE 11

Week 2 Quarter 4

Prepared by:
Flordeliza M. Caingcoy
Teacher II
 Learning Activity Sheets (LAS)

Name of Learner: _________________________ Gr. and Sec.___________

Subject Teacher: ____________________________Date: _____________

21st Century Literature from the Philippines and the World

Title: Writing a Close Analysis and Critical Interpretation of Literary Texts

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 Latin America and Africa.

II. Background Information for Learners

.
Reading is a widely used approach to enhance reading comprehension. For the
students to be able to engage in the reading of complex texts, close reading is
important. Close reading is a method of analyzing literary works which gives focus on the
particular details of a passage or text in order to have a precise and deep understanding of
the text; its form, meaning and even the author’s style of writing.

Assessments about writing a close analysis and critical interpretation of literary

texts from representative texts and authors from Asia, North America and Europe will be
the coverage in this Learning Activity Sheet.

Critical analysis is a careful examination and evaluation of a text, image, or other

work or performance while 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. Fiction writers and poets build texts out of many central components, including
subject, form, and specific word choices. Literary analysis involves examining these
components which allow us to find in small parts of the text clues to help us understand the
whole. Close reading is a process of finding as much information as you can in order to form
as many questions as you can.

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 America,
and Africa. For further reference, look at the table below and see the representative texts
and authors from the continents of Asia, America and Europe:

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21 Century Representative Texts and Authors
st

Continent Title of Texts Authors Nationality/Country of

Origin
A. Asia
Three Sisters Bi Feiyu Chinese
I Do Eileen Tabios Filipino
Serious Men Manu Joseph Indian
The Changeling Kenzaburō Ōe Japanese
The Thing About Tabish Khair Indian
Thugs
B.North
America
It Is Important To Joshua Jennifer California, USA
Be Something Espinoza
Twin Study Stacey Richter Arizona, USA
The Bully Roger Dean California, USA
Kiser
Mango Poem Regie Cabico Filipino-American/New
York City, USA
This is America Donald Glober African-American/ Georgia,
USA
A Gentle Hell Autumn California, USA
Christian
C. Europe
Machines Like Me Ian Russell Aldershot, England
McEwan
Changing My Mind Zadie Smith, London, England
(Sadie Smith)
Cloud Atlas David Stephen Worcestershire, England
Mitchell
The History Boys Allan Bennet Yorkshire, England
Harry Potter Joanne Kathleen England
Series Rowling

This learning activity sheet further contains learnings and activities

about representative texts and authors from Latin America and Africa.

Latin American Literature refers to written and oral works created by literary writers
in South America, and the Caribbean. The languages which Latin American authors usually
use in writing are Spanish, Portuguese, English, or a language native to their specific
country. Latin American literature is the literature of the Spanish- speaking countries of the
Western Hemisphere. Historically, Latin American Literature also includes the literary
expression of the highly developed American Indian civilizations which were conquered by
the Spaniards. So, as the years went, Latin American literature was able to develop a rich
and complex diversity of themes, creative idioms, and styles.

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 Among those included in the Latin American literature are the Dominican Latina
writer Julia Alvarez with her novel, In the Name of Salome, rising contemporary literature
star Yuri Herrera from Mexico with his groundbreaking novel, Signs Preceding the End of
the World, Pulitzer Prize-winning Junot Diaz with one of his earlier short stories, “How to
Date a Brown Girl (black girl,white girl, or halfie),” and Haitian Edwidge Danticat’s short
story, “Ghosts.”

Africa is called the “Dark Continent” because most people know very little about this
continent since it remained unexplored over a long period of time. Their literature contains
the body of traditional oral and written works expressed in Afro-Asiatic, African, and
European languages. Modern African literatures were born in the educational systems
imposed by colonialism, with models drawn from Europe rather than existing African
traditions.

Among the African literary texts and authors are : Poems, “My Black is Beautiful
(Woman)” and “My Black is Beautiful (Man)” by Naomi Johnson, Short Story, “A Private
Experience” by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Short Story, “Inscape” by Yaa Gyasi, Short
Story, “War for God” by Zaynab Quadri and “The Sack” by Namwali Serpell.

III. Accompanying DepEd Textbook and Educational Sites

1. Elizabeth Ann Wynne Gunner, Lecturer in African Literature, School of Oriental and
African Studies- https://www.britannica.com/art/African-literature
2. https://21stcenturylitph.wordpress.com/2018/05/25/literature-from-latin-america/
3. http://exploringafrica.matrix.msu.edu/curriculum/unit-three/module-eleven/activity-
one/
4. www.topplelearning.com

IV. Activity Proper

Instructions: Read the poem below from the African Poetry. Then write a
close analysis and critical interpretation of the text. Use the following questions to
guide you in doing the task on your answer sheet.

What is the major theme of the poem?

How did the author present the plot of the poem? (describe the plot of the
poem)
Did the author use rhyme scheme at the end of each line of a poem?
Did the author choose a free format in writing the poem?
Did the author use figurative language as a literary device in the poem?
Is the poem easy to be understood by ordinary readers like students?
Did the author use strong emotions to control the language in the poem?
Was the author’s nationality reflected in the genre of the poem?

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 Saturday
By: Charles Mungoshi (poet from Zimbabwe)

This is Saturday afternoon –

thunder in the air,
banana leaves rustling against the wall
the muted sounds of the children
playing rag ball out on the streets.

I have done my laundry,

washed up the pots, pans and plates.
My room is clean.
I have just taken a bath;
I am sitting by the window.

Far, far across the cocoa-coloured fields

across the river at the foot of those hills –
cars, like matchbox toys, hurtle
towards their weekend destinations.
I know I shall watch them
crawl back again on Sunday evening.
I know it: they can never escape
their destiny which is so deeply-etched
somewhere inside me.

This is Saturday afternoon

with nothing to do
thunder in the air,
banana leaves rustling against the wall
the muted sounds of children
playing rag ball somewhere in the streets.
I have done my laundry,
washed up the pots, pans and plates.
I have just had a bath
everything is clean, inside and outside.
I am sitting by the window
and all the world is here.
Where could anyone, or anything
possibly wish to escape to?

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 Instructions: Write a close analysis and critical interpretation of the selection
below. The following questions will help you compose a paragraph. Do it on your
answer sheet.

Were the literary elements like theme, characters, setting, plot, conflict, tone, and point
of view clearly depicted by the author in the story?
Do the characters portray realistic scenes?
Does the author use clear and simple language in his writings?
Does the story contain violent scenes and languages?
Does the author use sensory imagery to capture the reader’s interest and emotion?

In the Name of Salomé

by Julia Alvarez (Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill)

She stands by the door, a tall, elegant woman with a soft brown color to her skin
(southern Italian? a Mediterranean Jew? a light-skinned negro woman who has been
allowed to pass by virtue of her advanced degrees?), and reviews the empty rooms that
have served as home for the last eighteen years.

Now in the full of June, the attic is hot. Years back, when she earned tenure, the
dean offered her a more modern apartment, nearer to the campus. But she refused. She
has always loved attics, their secretiveness, their niches and nooks, where those never
quite at home in the house can hide. And this one has wonderful light. Shafts of sunlight
swarm with dust motes, as if the air were coming alive.

It is time for fresh blood in this old house. On the second floor, right below her,
Vivian Lafleur from the Music Department is getting on in years and going a bit deaf, too.
Every year the piano gets more fortissimo, her foot heavy on the pedal. Her older sister,
Dot, has already retired from Admissions and moved in with her "baby" sister.

She herself is worried about the emptiness that lies ahead. Childless and
motherless, she is a bead unstrung from the necklace of the generations. All she leaves
behind here are a few close colleagues, also about to retire, and her students, those
young immortals with, she hopes, the Spanish subjunctive filed away in their heads.

She must not let herself get morbid. It is 1960. In Cuba, Castro and his bearded
boys are saying alarming, wonderful things about the new patria they are creating. The
Dalai Lama, who fled Tibet last year on a yak with the Chinese at his heels, has issued
a statement: One must love one's enemies, or else all is lost. But these are positive
signs, she reminds herself, positive signs. It is not a new habit of hers: these efforts to
rouse herself from a depressive turn of mind she inherited from her mother. Now,
playfully, she imagines the many lives she has lived as captioned by the title of one or
another of her mother's poems. How should this new life be titled? "Faith in the Future"?

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"The Arrival of Winter"? or (why not?) "Love and Yearning"? The horn honks again. It
will probably be titled "Ruins" if she doesn't get downstairs soon! Marion is impatient to
go, red-faced and swearing, jerking the steering wheel as she turns the car around.
"Lady driver," one of the men mutters under his breath.

"Everyone who is anyone is getting out." "Well then, I'll have no problem. ‘I'm
Nobody—Who are you?'" She loves to quote Miss Dickinson, whose home she once
visited, whose fierce talent reminds her of her own mother's. Emily Dickinson is to the
United States of America as Salomé Ureña is to the Dominican Republic—something
like that.

"You are not nobody, Camila," her friend scolds. "Don't be modest now!" Marion
loves to brag. She is from the midwestern part of the country, and so she is easily
impressed by somebodies, especially when they come from either coast or from foreign
countries. ("Camila's mother was a famous poet." "Her father was president." "Her
brother was the Norton Lecturer at Harvard.") Perhaps Marion thinks that such reflected
importance will stem the tide of prejudice that often falls on the foreign and colored in
this country. She should know better. How can Marion forget the cross burning on her
front lawn that long ago summer Camila visited the Reed family in North Dakota?

She couldn't possibly see me; the professor is thinking. I am already gone from
this place before she leaves, she makes the sign of the cross—an old habit she has not
been able to shake since her mother's death sixty-three years ago. In the name of the
Father and of the Son and of my mother, Salomé.

Her aunt Ramona, her mother's only sister, taught her to do this. Dear old Mon,
round andbrown with a knot of black hair on top of her head, a Dominican Buddha but
with none of the bodhisattva's calm. Mon was more superstitious than religious and
more cranky than anything else. Back then, it was a habit to kiss each parent's hand
and ask their blessing before leaving the house. La bendición, Mamá. La bendición,
Papá. When her mother died, Mon thought up this way for her to ask for Salomé's
blessing. To summon strength from a fading memory that every year became less and
less real until all that was left of her mother was the story of her mother.

Years of teaching physical education have kept Marion fit and trim, and her hardy
midwestern genes have done the rest. She is warm-hearted and showy, kicking up a
storm wherever she goes. "Are you Spanish, too?" people often ask, and with her dark
hair and bright eyes Marion could pass, though her skin is so pale that Camila's father
often worried that she might be anemic or consumptive.

They have lived through so much, some of which is best left buried in the past,
especially now that Marion is a respectable married lady. ("I don't know about the
respectable," Marion laughs.) In her politics, however, Marion is as conservative as her
recently acquired husband, Lesley Richards III, whose perennial tan gives him a

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shellacked look, as if he were being preserved for posterity. He is rich and alcoholic
and riddled with ailments.

"In the name of my mother, Salomé," she says to herself again. She needs all
the help she can get here at the end of her life in the United States. Somewhere past
Trenton, New Jersey, to keep her restless friend from further distractions ("Light me a
cigarette, will you?" "Any more of those chips left?" "I sure could use a soda!"), she
offers: "Shall I tell you why I have decided to go back?" Marion has been pestering
Camila ever since she arrived a few days ago to help her friend pack. "But why? Why?
That's what I want to know. What do you hope to accomplish with a bunch of ill-
mannered, unshaven, unwashed guerrillas running a country?" Purposely, she believes,
Marion mispronounces the word so it sounds like gorillas. "Guerrillas," Camila corrects,
rattling the r's.

She has been afraid she will sound foolish if she explains how just once before
her life is over, she would like to give herself completely to something—yes, like her
mother. Friends would worry that she had lost her wits, too much sugar in her blood,
her cataracts blurring all levels of her vision. And Marion's disapproval would be the
worst of all, for she would not only disagree with Camila's choice, she would try to save
her.

Camila takes a deep breath. Perhaps the future will be over sooner than she
thinks. "I'm all ears," Marion says when they have both recovered. Camila's heart is still
beating wildly—one of those bats that sometimes gets trapped in her attic apartment so
that she has to call the grounds crew to come get it out. "I have to go back a ways," she
explains. "I have to start with Salomé."

"Can I confess something?" Marion asks, not a real question, as she does not
wait for Camila to answer back. "Please don't get your feelings hurt, but I honestly don't
think I would ever have heard of your mother unless I had met you." She's not surprised.
Americans don't interest themselves in the heroes and heroines of minor countries until
someone makes a movie about them.

"So, what's the story?" Marion wants to know. "As I said, I'll have to start with my
mother, which means at the birth of la patria, since they were both born about the same
time." Her voice sounds strangely her own and not her own. All those years in the
classroom. Her half-brother Rodolfo calls it her teacher's handicap, how she vanishes
into whatever she's teaching. She's done it all her life. Long before she stepped into a
classroom, she indulged this habit of erasing herself, of turning herself into the third
person, a minor character, the best friend (or daughter!) of the dying first-person hero
or heroine. Her mission in life—after the curtain falls—to tell the story of the great ones
who have passed on. But Marion is not going to indulge her. Camila has not gotten past
the first few years of Salomé's life and the wars of independence when her friend
interrupts. "I thought you were finally going to talk about yourself, Camila."

"I am talking about myself," she says—and waits until they have passed a large
moving van, sailing ship afloat on its aluminum sides—before she begins again.

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 RUBRIC FOR WRITING COMPOSITION
Performance Very Good Good Needs Improvement
Areas 10-8 7-5 4-1
Content Article has specific Central idea is vague; non- Unable to find specific
central idea that is clearly supportive to the topic; lacks supporting details
stated in the opening focus
paragraph, appropriate,
concrete details
Organization Article is logically Writing somewhat digresses Central point and flow of
organized and well- from the central idea article is lost; lacks
structured organization and continuity
Style Writing is smooth, Sentences are varied and Lacks creativity and focus.
coherent and consistent inconsistent with central idea Unrelated word choice to
understanding of information central idea
in text
Mechanics Written work has no Written work is relatively free Written article has several
errors in word selection of errors in word selection and errors in word selection
and use sentence use, sentence structure, and use; indiscriminately
structure, spelling, spelling, punctuation and selected phrases or
punctuation, and capitalization (some have sentences.
capitalization errors)

Remember

Latin American Literature refers to written and oral works created by authors
in parts of North America, South America, and the Caribbean. Latin American authors
usually write in Spanish, Portuguese, English, or a language native to their specific
country.
Africa is called the “Dark Continent” because most people know very little
about this continent since it remained unexplored over a long period of time. African
literature contains the body of traditional oral and written works expressed in Afro-
Asiatic, African, and European languages.

V. Reflection

1. What did you like most / didn’t you like about the activities?
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______________________________________________________________

2. Which part of the activities did you find challenging?

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VI. Answer Key

Activity 1 (Answers may vary)

Activity 2 (Answers may vary)