Evelyn L.

Pacquing
St. Paul University Philippines
Objectives

 Acquaint teachers with approaches on

how to read and teach Philippine literary
pieces from the region;

 Utilize appropriate approaches discussed

in choosing texts based on contexts
Challenge
 Books attempt to categorize history or to
divide time into named blocks or provide a
survey with a different approach to the
literature of the Philippines.

 Result: Descriptive abstraction

that provides convenient terms
for periods of time with
relatively stable characteristics.
Reading Approaches
based on Published Anthologies
in Philippine Literature
 Fourteen Thematic Divisions
1. Imaging the Filipino Man
2. Imaging the Filipino Woman
3. Representing the Filipino Family
4. Exploring Filipino Traditions
5. Discovering Love and the Filipino
6. Exploring Filipino Humor
7. Interrogating Gender Relations and the Filipino
8. Representing Death and the Filipino
 Fourteen Thematic Divisions
9. Understanding Spirituality and the Filipino
10. Discovering Philippine Aesthetics
11. Looking at War and the Filipino
12. Exploring Class Relations in the Philippines
13. Imaging the Filipino Migrant
14. Revisiting Philippine History
 Gives overview of Philippine literature as it had
developed in the course of the growth of the
nation
 Categorizing agent: history and politics
 Literary history based on political framework
 Philippine literature is not a simple chronology
of literary masterpieces or a parade
of fine writers .
 Philippine Literature : historical names periods as the
framework
◦ Pre-Spanish Times: myths, legends, epics, wise sayings, dirges,
folk songs, and epic plays.
◦ Spanish Period: grammatical studies, regional linguistic works,
religious literatures, revolutionary and propaganda movements’
prose writing, poetry, essays, and novels as well as the periodicals
of the revolution.
◦ American Regency: novels, essays, short stories, poetry and
plays
 Socio-cultural division: pre-war and post-war years and the
more recent times.
◦ “apprenticeship – emergence – contemporary division of literary
periods
 Four factors: chronology (named time periods), literary
types and forms, geography (space), and language (linguistic
markers).
◦ Pre-Hispanic Literature and the Continuing Oral Tradition
◦ Philippine Writing during the Spanish Period
◦ Philippine Writing during the Period of Emerging National
Consciousness
◦ Philippine Literature of the Twentieth Century
Final Thought
 Content standards and performance
standards should not be compromised.
 Learning competencies are not
negotiable.