LEARNING ACTIVITY SHEET IN ENGLISH 10

Worksheet No. 6 Quarter 3

Learner’s Name : ______________________________________________

Grade Level/Section : ______________________________________________
Date : ______________________________________________

I. LEARNING SKILLS
A. Most Essential Learning Competency:
Critique a literary selection based on feminist approach.
B. Specific Objective/s:
1. Read critically a story demonstrating feminism.
2. Evaluate a story using the feminist approach.

II. INTRODUCTORY CONCEPT

During the 19th century, many women’s rights, freedoms and overall independence
were suppressed by a male dominant society. They were perceived as the weaker sex
and experienced many oppression about their lives and survival.
Armed with the advantages of women as tough, constant, enduring and calm,
women finally made their place in the pedestal as they are recognized in the different
areas. Authors of many good pieces of literature were able to showcase their strengths
and show the world how empowered women are today.

Things to Remember in Feminist Approach:

Feminist criticism is concerned with "the ways in which literature (and other
cultural productions) reinforce or undermine the economic, political, social, and
psychological oppression of women". This school of theory looks at how aspects of our
culture are inherently patriarchal (male dominated) and aims to expose misogyny in
writing about women, which can take explicit and implicit forms. This misogyny, Tyson
reminds us, can extend into diverse areas of our culture: "Perhaps the most chilling
example...is found in the world of modern medicine, where drugs prescribed for both
sexes often have been tested on male subjects only.
Feminist criticism is also concerned with less obvious forms of marginalization
such as the exclusion of women writers from the traditional literary canon: "...unless the
critical or historical point of view is feminist, there is a tendency to underrepresent the
contribution of women writers".
Source:https://owl.purdue.edu/owl/subject_specific_writing/writing_in_literature/
literary_theory_and_schools_of_criticism/

Common Space in Feminist Theories

Though a number of different approaches exist in feminist criticism, there exist
some areas of commonality. This list is excerpted from Tyson (92):

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 1. Women are oppressed by patriarchy economically, politically, socially, and
psychologically; patriarchal ideology is the primary means by which women are
oppressed.
2. In every domain where patriarchy reigns, woman is other: she is marginalized,
defined only by her difference from male norms and values.
3. All of Western (Anglo-European) civilization is deeply rooted in patriarchal ideology,
for example, in the Biblical portrayal of Eve as the origin of sin and death in the world.
4. While biology determines our sex (male or female), culture determines our gender
(scales of masculine and feminine).
5. All feminist activity, including feminist theory and literary criticism, has as its ultimate
goal to change the world by prompting gender equality.
6. Gender issues play a part in every aspect of human production and experience,
including the production and experience of literature, whether we are consciously aware
of these issues or not.
Source:https://owl.purdue.edu/owl/subject_specific_writing/writing_in_literature/
literary_theory_and_schoo ls_of_criticism/feminist_criticism.html

Guide Questions
A. How are women’s lives portrayed in the work?
B. Is the form and content of the work influenced by the writer’s gender?
C. How do male and female characters relate to one another? Are these relationships
sources of conflict? Are these conflicts resolved?
D. Does the work challenge or affirm traditional views of women?
E. How do the images of women in the story reflect patriarchal social forces that have
impeded women’s efforts to achieve full equality with men?
F. What marital expectations are imposed on the characters? What effect do these
expectations have?
G. What behavioral expectations are imposed on the characters? What effect do these
expectations have?
H. If a female character were male, how would the story be different (and vice versa)?
I. How does the marital status of a character affect her decisions or happiness?

III. ACTIVITIES
A. Practice Task 1
Women Empowerment
Women in the past were deemed to be of weaker sex. But in today’s global and
everyday contexts, they are perceived as equal to men. Using the organizer below, list
the things that women were not allowed to do before and those they are able to do in
the present time.

Before, women were not allowed to... But today, they can…
1. 1.
2. 2.
3. 3.

Practice Task 2 Let’s Explore It

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 The story you are about to unfold is regarding a woman who has received a bad
news about her husband. How did she manage to absorb the news since she had a
heart problem? Read and be sure to understand the text.

The Story of an Hour

Kate Chopin
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Knowing that Mrs. Mallard was afflicted crying his wares. The notes of a distant
with a heart trouble, great care was song which some one was singing
taken to break to her as gently as reached her faintly, and countless
possible the news of her husband's sparrows were twittering in the eaves.
death.
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There were patches of blue sky
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It was her sister Josephine who told showing here and there through the
her, in broken sentences; veiled hints clouds that had met and piled one
that revealed in half concealing. Her above the other in the west facing her
husband's friend Richards was there, window.
too, near her. It was he who had been in
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the newspaper office when intelligence She sat with her head thrown back
of the railroad disaster was received, upon the cushion of the chair, quite
with Brently Mallard's name leading the motionless, except when a sob came up
list of "killed." He had only taken the into her throat and shook her, as a child
time to assure himself of its truth by a who has cried itself to sleep continues to
second telegram, and had hastened to sob in its dreams.
forestall any less careful, less tender 8
friend in bearing the sad message. She was young, with a fair, calm face,
whose lines bespoke repression and
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She did not hear the story as many even a certain strength. But now there
women have heard the same, with a was a dull stare in her eyes, whose
paralyzed inability to accept its gaze was fixed away off yonder on one
significance. She wept at once, with of those patches of blue sky. It was not
sudden, wild abandonment, in her a glance of reflection, but rather
sister's arms. When the storm of grief indicated a suspension of intelligent
had spent itself she went away to her thought.
room alone. She would have no one 9
follow her. There was something coming to her
and she was waiting for it, fearfully.
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There stood, facing the open window, a What was it? She did not know; it was
comfortable, roomy armchair. Into this too subtle and elusive to name. But she
she sank, pressed down by a physical felt it, creeping out of the sky, reaching
exhaustion that haunted her body and toward her through the sounds, the
seemed to reach into her soul. scents, the color that filled the air. Now
her bosom rose and fell tumultuously.
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She could see in the open square She was beginning to recognize this
before her house the tops of trees that thing that was approaching to possess
were all aquiver with the new spring life. her, and she was striving to beat it back
The delicious breath of rain was in the with her will—as powerless as her two
air. In the street below a peddler was white slender hands would have been.

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 15
When she abandoned herself a little Josephine was kneeling before the
whispered word escaped her slightly closed door with her lips to the keyhole,
parted lips. She said it over and over imploring for admission. "Louise, open
under her breath: "free, free, free!" The the door! I beg; open the door—you will
vacant stare and the look of terror that make yourself ill. What are you doing,
had followed it went from her eyes. They Louise? For heaven's sake open the
stayed keen and bright. Her pulses beat door."
fast, and the coursing blood warmed
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and relaxed every inch of her body. "Go away. I am not making myself ill."
No; she was drinking in a very elixir of
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She did not stop to ask if it were or life through that open window.
were not a monstrous joy that held her.
17
A clear and exalted perception enabled Her fancy was running riot along those
her to dismiss the suggestion as trivial. days ahead of her. Spring days, and
summer days, and all sorts of days that
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She knew that she would weep again would be her own. She breathed a quick
when she saw the kind, tender hands prayer that life might be long. It was only
folded in death; the face that had never yesterday she had thought with a
looked save with love upon her, fixed shudder that life might be long.
and gray and dead. But she saw beyond
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that bitter moment a long procession of She arose at length and opened the
years to come that would belong to her door to her sister's importunities. There
absolutely. And she opened and spread was a feverish triumph in her eyes, and
her arms out to them in welcome. she carried herself unwittingly like a
goddess of Victory. She clasped her
12
There would be no one to live for her sister's waist, and together they
during those coming years; she would descended the stairs. Richards stood
live for herself. There would be no waiting for them at the bottom.
powerful will bending hers in that blind
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persistence with which men and women Someone was opening the front door
believe they have a right to impose a with a latchkey. It was Brently Mallard
private will upon a fellow-creature. A who entered, a little travel-stained,
kind intention or a cruel intention made composedly carrying his grip-sack and
the act seem no less a crime as she umbrella. He had been far from the
looked upon it in that brief moment of scene of the accident, and did not even
illumination. know there had been one. He stood
amazed at Josephine's piercing cry; at
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And yet she had loved him— Richards' quick motion to screen him
sometimes. Often she had not. What did from the view of his wife. 20But Richards
it matter! What could love, the unsolved was too late.
mystery, count for in the face of this
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possession of self-assertion which she When the doctors came they said she
suddenly recognized as the strongest had died of heart disease—of joy that
impulse of her being! kills.
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"Free! Body and soul free!" she kept
whispering.

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Source:https://www.wlwv.k12.or.us/cms/lib8/OR01001812/Centricity/Domain/1309/Kate%20Chopin
%20Story%20Texts.pdf

Practice Task 3

Check Me

Answer each of the following questions with 1 or more complete sentences. Write
your answer on your answer sheet.

1. In the first two paragraphs, what evidence shows that others perceive Mrs. Mallard
as weak and fragile?

2. What was life like for Mrs. Mallard in the home of Brently Mallard?

3. In Paragraph 12, what inference can you make about the role Mrs. Mallard played
in her marriage?

4. In the final paragraph, the doctors claim to know why Mrs. Mallard’s heart gives
out. What do they mean by “joy that kills”? In other words, why do the doctors think
she died?

5. Why is the doctor’s diagnosis an example of dramatic irony? (What do we know

about Mrs. Mallard that none of the other characters know?)

Practice Task 4. My Reflection

The story you have read shows the strength of a woman as the protagonist of
the story Based on the events of the story, be able to answer the organizer below.

How are women’s lives What are the strengths of a Cite conflicts between man
portrayed in the story? woman present in the text? and woman in the story
________________________ ________________________ _________________
________________________ ________________________ _________________

What roles of a woman were found in the text? What gender inequalities are
___________________________________________________ found in the story?
_________________________________________ ______________________________

Does the work challenge or affirm traditional views of women? Prove your answer.
________________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________________

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B. Assessment
Using the template below, organize your thoughts justifying the presence of feminism
in the story read.

Title:
Author:

The story is all about

__________________________________________________
__________________________________________________
__________________________________________________

The woman in the story showed

__________________________________________________
__________________________________________________
__________________________________________________
__________________________________________________
__________________________________________________

After reading the story, I realized that

__________________________________________________
__________________________________________________
__________________________________________________
__________________________________________________

POINTS
CRITERIA
Content 20
Presentation 20
Grammar, Punctuation, Sentence Structure, and Spelling 20
Application of the theory 40

IV. REFERENCES
 https://www.wlwv.k12.or.us/cms/lib8/OR01001812/Centricity/Domain/1309/
Kate%20Chopin%20Story%20Texts.pdfhttps://owl.purdue.edu/owl/
subject_specific_writing/writing_in_literature/literary_theory_and_schoo
ls_of_criticism/feminist_criticism.html
 https://www.owleyes.org/text/the-story-of-an-hour/read/chopins-short-
story#root-32

Prepared by:

Sancho M. Bolanos Jr, Teacher II

Bonga National High School, Albay Division

Quality Assured by:

Aphrodite A. Bechayda., Teacher III Jeanette M. Romblon

Irene A. Marquez Teacher III EPS English SDO Masbate City

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