Teaching Philippine Literature and Illness: Finding Cure in Humanities

Health and illness as themes are uncommonly being touched in literature classrooms. Other than the lack of interdisciplinary studies or specialists in this field in the Philippines, often teachers are also confronted with tons of materials that they are either overwhelmed to teach or find it difficult to deliver on their classes. This is the goal of this paper, help teachers gain confidence and basic knowledge of teaching literature that discusses health and illness especially at this time of history. Helping both teachers and students to understand and appreciate literature as a space for developing empathy while also honing their communicative and critical thinking skills. This paper will execute this goal by providing teachers in high school a guide in teaching literature that tackles health and illness using Philippine literature. I will translate theories and concepts from other studies into easy and clear language that teachers and students will find accessible to learn and use. And to organize this article, I will divide this into three parts the first is backgrounding and developing the framework in teaching literature about health and illness. Second, the application of the framework developed using two Philippine literature texts. And lastly, this paper will demonstrate how to teach Philippine literature that tackles health and illness using an online learning management system like Canvas or Google Classroom.

Mobile textula: a possible new way of reawakening the marginalized Philippine poetry

Introduction: Poetry has long been part of any cultural and literary heritage. Despite poetry’s role in Philippine literature, the 21st-century Filipino learners lack the knowledge about folk poetry. Poems sent through short messaging service (SMS) or mobile textula were then introduced to capture the interest of the Filipino millennial learners. However, studies say little about this emerging means of literary propagation. Anchored in the Social Construction of Technology (SCOT) Theory, this study aimed to contribute to the body of knowledge to reawaken the marginalized Philippine poetry. Method: Through external desk research, this qualitative study delved into the history, type, sample poems, and the possibility of using mobile textula to reinforce the 21st-century Filipino learners' understanding of the marginalized Philippine poetry. \ Result: After an integrative literature review of various sources (full paper in conference proceedings, journal articles, education-related sites, and online news), it was found that mobile textula was made known in 2002 through the "Textanaga Contest," the first text-a-poem contest in the Philippines which gathered 10,000 poems on its launching day. Sample poems were that of the tanaga, dalit, and diona which are considered marginalized poetry among the generation of modern Filipinos. Moreover, a private college in one of the provinces in Luzon saw the effectivity of textula in teaching language, literature, and socio-cultural awareness. Discussion: Therefore, the study suggests that teachers consider the use of textula in teaching literature. Further, a wide scope of an experimental study on the effectiveness of textula in the classroom is recommended.

Philippine Literature in Spanish: Canon Away from Canon

Why does everyone know Claro M. Recto’s name in the Philippines but almost nobody has ever read his works? Following Pascale Casanova as well as some postulates by Pierre Bourdieu and Itamar Even-Zohar, the article outlines the complex linguistic reality in the Philippines at the beginning of the 20th century and traces the origins of the current literary canon of Philippine literature, as well as its contemporary position both nationally and internationally. It also discusses how markers of literary prestige were supplanted by markers of political and patriotic prestige, thereby creating a literary canon based on an author’s contribution to the creation of a suitable ‘Philippine national identity’.

Relocating the Ilokano Women Writers of Nueva Vizcaya

The study attempts to empower ordinary women writers from the region who are considered to be in the peripheries. The bibliographic building of the foremost Ilokano women writers of Nueva Vizcaya who remain unaccounted and missing in Philippine literature will promote the woman presence in the nation and their place in Philippine literature, while the criticism of their retrieved and collected published short stories written in the vernacular, Iluko, will intensify the relevance of Iluko as regional literature and as a language. Consequently, the study will contribute to the growing body of feminist studies and literary criticism in the Philippines today. Results of the study showed that these four Ilokano women writers who are unknown and neglected in the region and in Philippine literature have a significant socio-cultural impact and contributed to the refinement, enrichment, and general development of their language and literature; literature being the grandeur of language and language the carrier of culture. The short stories of the Ilokano women writers present the unique Ilokano ways, traditions and cultures and the concepts of Ilokano woman and womanhood embedded with their traditional images and representations but also claim the idea of equality between man and woman. It might be construed that Ilokano women and the women writers were not fully contaminated at all with the patriarchal ideology and don’t adhere and have bent and even dismantled patriarchy, or even the attempt to overcome and change this ideology. The Ilokano women writers showed through their short stories, that they have sustained their unique cultural identity despite the impact of colonization. The general awareness and recognition of these regional women writers and their literary pieces would bring a ripple effect to the younger women of the region who would continue to change and overcome the tainted image of the third world regional women writer and women in general, and bringing them no longer to the peripheries but to the center.

Scaffolding of Instruction, Cooperative Training, Activation of Prior Knowledge as Predictors of Student Achievement in Literature Courses

The study was conducted and anchored on the concept Darling-Hammond (1999) that teachers who are using a wide repertoire of approaches skillfully (literature-based, lecture and small group work) are typically most successful to influence academic achievement. This study aimed to determine the significant relationship and influence of the utilization of literature-based instruction among teachers to the achievement of students in literature course. Descriptive correlation survey was used in this study. It focuses on the present condition with the purpose of finding new truth and it is valuable in providing facts on which specific judgments may be based. The study was conducted in the University of Mindanao to 400 student-respondents. Mean, Pearson Product Moment Correlation and Linear Regression Analysis were the statistical tools used for the data analysis. The findings of the study are as follows: The level of performance of teacher in the utilization of literature-based instruction was high while the level of achievement of students in literature course was moderate.The study concluded that the performance of teachers on the utilization of literature–based instruction influenced or predicted the achievement of students in literature course.Keywords: Literature-based Instruction, Academic Achievement, Teachers in the University of Mindanao, and Module in Philippine Literature