I.

INTRODUCTION

Literature has always been a part of our day to day life. According to the
encyclopedia of Britannica, literature is a body of written works. The name has
traditionally been applied to those imaginative works of poetry and prose
distinguished by the intentions of their authors and the
perceived aesthetic excellence of their execution. Literature may be classified
according to a variety of systems, including language, national origin, historical
period, genre, and subject matter.

The unique thing about works of literature is that it is not just about arranging
words into artistic way and showing it off for the world to admire it. It allows the
author to express what they are seeing, experiencing and feeling. Together with
that, it paves the way for the authors to treasure and preserve the important
events of our society and lives. In connection to that, the new and upcoming
generations will be able to appreciate our history and literature.

Here in the Philippines, literature is not taken for granted. In fact, Philippine
Literature is one of our subjects in the tertiary curriculum. It is a very good chance
for us to trace the rich heritage of ideas handed down to us by forefathers. Since
literature reflects the culture and values, it also teaches us more about life and
appreciate the nature around us. It improves our communication and dealing with
people. By the help of our literature, we can understand ourselves better and take
pride in being a Filipino.

1|Page
II. OBJECTIVES

Specifically, the research objectives are the following:

 To understand well the meaning of Philippine literature
 To interpret the sense of stylistic approach
 To show the interrelatedness of Philippine literature and stylistic approach

III. SCOPE AND LIMITATION OF THE STUDY

As a Filipino, Philippine Literature is one of our greatest treasures. In fact, it is

one of our course in tertiary level. This study aims to deepen our knowledge of
the correlation of Philippine Literature towards stylistic approach. This will help us
understand further the course and even allow us to appreciate it. The researcher
connected the said study in the contemporary period and current academic setting
of the Philippine.

2|Page
IV. DEFINITION OF TERMS

Literature is really a wide kind of course. This study will help the students to
comprehend deeper in this course. To furthermore understand the contents of this
research paper, here are some keywords to help you out:

 Literature
- pieces of writing that are valued as works of art, especially
novels, plays and poems
- all information relating to a subject, especially information
written by experts
 Philippine Literature
- writings that are written by Filipino authors
- these are pieces that is intended to and had happened in the
Philippines
 Interrelatedness
- connected in such a way that each thing has an effect on
the others
 Stylistic
- relating to a particular style of doing something
 Approach
- a way of considering or doing something

3|Page
V. REVIEW AND RELATED LITERATURE

“How does the Philippine literary establishment look from afar? It

appears to be a small, tight-knit community—too small for a nation of 70 million
people. In this community, comments critical of another’s work seem to be
taboo. Only pleasant words are allowed to come out in print.” This was quoted
by Bienvenido Santos a Filipino-American author who is staying outside of the
country but managed to study our literature. In the statement he mentioned, it
somehow means that Philippines deserve a bigger knowledge of literature. We
are big in a way that our comprehension when it comes to this field is so
limited.
In the article shared by Isagani R. Cruz, he mentioned that Philippine
literature is alive and well and living on the Web. He is an award-winning author
who really give a thing to our literature. He does conferences and his target
listeners are the students who are interested in literature. He believed that
since we are in the 21st century already, it is expected that our literature has
evolved as well. He specifically set the web as the best example for that.
In this study, we will consider the factors that allows us to know more
about Philippine literature and grasp its styles on how its delivered to the
Filipinos specially in today’s generation.

4|Page
VI. DISCUSSION

A. Philippine Literature in Academic Curriculum of the Country

In the article written by Isagani Cruz, it has been discussed that

Literature as a subject is taught only in college, in two General Education
subjects required of all humanities, social sciences, and communication
majors – Literatures of the Philippines and Literatures of the World. For some
universities, in the current basic education curriculum, literature is taught
mainly as part of language courses
When the General Education Curriculum has been revised and all
disciplinary courses were split, the two college literature courses were moved
to SHS. The curriculum of Grade 12 for all Senior High School students now
includes two literature courses namely 21st Century Philippine Literatures of
the Regions and 21st Century Literatures of the World.
He also mentioned the proposed drafts for the Literature courses
according to Department of Education plans. It has been proposed that on the
second semester of Grade 11, a course entitled “Contemporary Regional
Philippine Literature” will be taken by the students. This subject will be about
the critical discussion and appreciation of literary texts originally written and/or
published in the 21st century in the region where the school is located. The
course is derived from the current college course called “Philippine Literature.”
In the First Semester of Grade 12, a similar course called
“Contemporary World Literature” has been proposed as well, which would
focus on the study of international literary texts originally written and/or
published during the 21st century. This course is derived from the current
college course called “World Literature.”

5|Page
B. The Stylistic Approach of Teaching Philippine Literature

A teaching approach according to Salandanan (2005) is “a procedure

that employs a variety of strategies to access better understanding and
effective learning.” We can say that in this context, a teaching approach is a
specifically defined as the framework used by teachers to deliver activities and
discussion in a class.
In the past, due to the lack of technology, students were forced to read
most of the time then try to write with the knowledge they have learned in the
discussion of the teacher and extracting the style of the pieces they have read.
We cannot deny that even before, Literature is so important in our curriculum
since it really helps us sharpen our skills in writing and comprehension.
Victor Ordonez a former DepEd Undersecretary once said, “We cannot
equip the youth of the future with the tools of the past.” As we can observe in
today’s strategy of teaching, a lot of teachers are applying that concept
already. With the help of our advanced technology, it is simpler for us to have
ways in learning further in our courses.
Most of the discussions in the classrooms presently, our teachers
choose to use projectors and even when they assigned reports and
presentations, we the students opt to use the help of multimedia projectors as
well.

C. The Interrelatedness of Philippine Literature towards Stylistic Approach

Specific to the approaches in teaching literature, Hwang and Embi

(2007) mentioned some of the activities. For language-based approach, the
activities include prediction, cloze, ranking tasks, role play, poetry recital,
forum, debate and discussions. These activities are all student-centered.
Activities that are teacher-centered on the other hand are lectures,
explanation, reading of notes and criticism provided in workbook or by the
teacher. The teacher-centered activities are under the information-based
approach. Teacher re-telling the story or a poem using simpler language, use
of translation using other mother tongues and reading paraphrased versions
or notes provided in the workbook or by the teacher are activities that can be
used as part of their approaches.

6|Page
 These approaches are still practiced in today’s generation but not most
of the time already. Isagani Cruz, former Undersecretary of Education quoted
that, “Philippine literature is alive and well and living on the Web.” A person
who has internet access can just type on the search engines and immediately,
they will be able to find what they’re looking for. That’s how our technology
helps us well. As student, we are tasked to find and research something from
time to time, in a practical way, we always think of the library first but presently,
we automatically choose to use the internet.
The good thing about internet is that we can easily get what we wanted
to search about and there are a lot of references as well. Together with that,
the media is also available for us to view such as videos, music, pictures and
table presentations.
One thing that we should be careful of is to be cautious for its
disadvantages. One of the disadvantages of the Internet is that it provides a
huge amount of information thereby causing information overload. In due
course, one can easily get confused with this infinite amount of titles, texts and
abstracts. And because of the overwhelming information available on the
Internet, one must be cautious about information obtained. Not all information
posted in the web are authenticated and validated, therefore, it is our
responsibility is also to look and research further for the background of the
author and citations.

7|Page
VII. CONCLUSION

In this study, we can really say that literature being given much more
attention now than in the past. Simply because literature has proven its worth
in preparing what DepEd calls the “holistically developed Filipino with 21st
century skills.”
DepEd breaks down this overall outcome of basic education into four
verifiable types of skills: information, media and technology skills; learning and
innovation skills; life and career skills; and effective communication skills.
Literature is a major factor in achieving these four skills.

Using the practical way of getting to know Philippine Literature such as

going to the library, reading a lot of pieces and articles, applying student and
teacher-centered activities is still applicable in today’s generation but we can
also conclude that together with that, we are already relying to our advanced
technology knowing that we also need to be responsible in using it.

8|Page
VIII. BIBLIOGRAPHY

https://www.britannica.com/art/literature

https://myschoolworks.wordpress.com/2010/10/11/why-study-philippine-
literature

https://www.oxfordlearnersdictionaries.com

https://dictionary.cambridge.org

http://www.sushidog.com/bpss/essays/rplit_today.htm

http://www.philstar.com/education-and-home/2013/10/03/1240868/teaching-
literature

http://www.philstar.com/education-and-home/2012-11-22/870573/literature-
kto-12-curriculum

http://research.buksu.edu.ph/index.php/APJSBS/article/view/48/15 (research
by Grenna Marie Joy P. Simene)

9|Page