Name: Angel Kimberly S.

Parala Grade/Section: 10-Imaginative

MODULE 2 ENGLISH
Lesson 1
Elements of a Short Story

WHAT’S MORE
For a short story to be good, it must reach the level of satisfaction that readers expect from a
literary work. To determine whether a short story is good or not, you may use the following
checklist.

1. Setting
● Is it described clearly?
● Is it appropriate?
● Is the social or cultural setup, if any, correct?
● Does the scene appeal to the reader’s five senses?
● Is the description well-researched, accurate, and evocative?

2. Character and Characterization

● Are the characters unique and memorable but believable at the same time?
● Are their motivations clear and are they well-rounded?
● Do the characters’ personalities complement each other in a way that makes the
central conflict more pronounced?
● Does the dialogue show that the characters are challenged?

3. Plot
● Is the beginning engaging?
● Is the ending well-developed?
● Does the action have well-controlled ups and downs?
● Is the ending surprising yet fitting?

4. Narrator and Point of View

● Does the narrator show rather than tell?
● Does the narrator reveal and imply, rather than explain and state?
● Does the narrator have mesmerizing, insightful, and impressive things to say or imply?

5. Style and Tone

● Is the opening sentence or paragraph strong, enticing, and confident?
● Does it set the mood and tone?
● Is it overly “anything” (e.g., overly cute, overly obvious, overly clever)?
● Does the description advance the reader’s understanding of character and plot?
● Does the relationship between dialogue and description support the goals of the short story?
● Is the dialogue believable and effective, striking the right balance between efficiency and
realism?

6. Theme
● Does the short story teach a valuable lesson in life?
● Is the theme compelling to the readers?
● Does it explore uncommon themes in society?

Now that you already know the factors to be considered in evaluating a story, recall a short
story you have read before, then explain what you liked or disliked about it in terms of the
elements indicated in the given graphic organizer.
WHAT I CAN DO
TITLE AND AUTHOR:
SETTING What I liked or disliked
-I liked that we can see where the scene is
placed
-I liked that it helps with the five senses of
the reader
-I liked that there is a specific place where
the characters are in
CHARACTERS What I liked or disliked
-I liked that they are the people playing
the scene
-I liked that they bring the story to life
-I liked that characters have their own
personalities
PLOT What I liked or disliked
-I liked that it is the overall storyline
-I liked that it can give the audience
surprises
-I liked that every story has their own
unique plot
THEME What I liked or disliked
- I liked that it gives a lesson
- I liked that it gives essence to the story
- I liked that it compels the readers
Choose a short story to read and evaluate. Rate its elements as either poor, fair, or
good. Explain your rating under the “comment” section. Do this on a separate sheet
of paper.

Title: Little Red Riding Hood

Author: Charles Perrault
RATING
Poor Fair Good Comment
Elements
1. Setting / It is set in the woods
2. Character and Characterization / The characters are
fictional
3. Plot / It has a unique plot
4. Narrator and Point of View / It was narrated nicely
5. Style and tone / The style and tone was
engaging
6. Theme / The theme was good

Lesson 2
Elements of the Plot

WHAT’S MORE
Devised by 19th century German playwright Gustav Freytag, Freytag’s
Pyramid, or Freytag’s Triangle, is a paradigm of dramatic structure outlining the
seven key steps in successful storytelling: exposition, rising action, climax, falling
action, and resolution. Look at the illustration below.
Based on the illustration, the following considerations should be put in mind when evaluating
the plot of a short story:

1. Exposition
● Is the setting introduced?
● Is the major character introduced?
● Are the author’s style and tone already evident?
● Is the complication or the inciting incident introduced?
● Is the reason for the complication or problem already hinted?

2. Rising Action
● Are other characters (e.g., antagonist) introduced?
● Is the complication or inciting incident set up or further built?
● Are the events built towards the climax?
● Does a character make a wrong decision?
● Does the antagonist hurt the protagonist?

3. Climax
● Are the characters compelled to make choices?
● Is the fate of the main character revealed?
● Do the events make a decisive turn (e.g., unexpected outcomes)?
● Is it the most exciting part of the story?

4. Falling Action
● Do other conflicts arise as a result of the climax?
● Does the climax establish the central theme of the story?
● Do the characters change in personality?
● Do the characters begin to realize why certain events happened?

5. Resolution/Denouement
● Do the characters go back to their normal world?
● Is there a closure among the characters?
● Does the ending give a sense of finality?
● Does it tie up the loose ends of the climax and falling action?

WHAT I CAN DO
Choose a short story and evaluate its plot. Using the following evaluation form. Do
this on another sheet of paper.

Title: The Ugly Duckling

Author: Hans Christian Anderse
RATING
 INDICATORS Needs Fair Good Very
Work Good
1 2 3 4
A. Exposition
1. Are the time and place described? /
2. Is the protagonist introduced? /
3. Is the author’s style and tone already evident? /
4. Is the reason for the problem already set up? /
Comments:
B. Rising Action
1. Is the antagonist or other supporting characters /
introduced?
2. Is the inciting incident set up or further developed? /
3. Do the events move towards the climax? /
4. Is there a character who makes a wrong decision? /
5. Does the antagonist hurt the protagonist? /
Comments:
C. Climax
1. Are the characters compelled to make choices? /
2. Is the fate of the main character revealed? /
3. Is there an unexpected turn of events? /
4. Is it the most exciting part of the story? /
Comments:
D. Falling Action
1. Do other conflicts arise because of the climax? /
2. Does it establish the theme of the story? /
3. Do the characters change in personality? /
4. Do they realize why certain events happened? /
Comments:
E. Resolution/ Denouement
1. Does the story end in a logical way? /
2. Do the characters go back to their normal world? /
3. Is there a closure between the protagonist and /
antagonist?
4. Do the characters learn a lesson? /
5. Does it connect the climax and falling action? /
Comments:

Lesson 3
Literary Theories:
Formalist, Moralist, Marxist

WHAT’S MORE
When critiquing a literary work using the formalist, moralist, and Marxist
approaches, the following guide questions may be considered.

1. Formalistic Approach
This approach focuses on form. The analysis stresses items like symbols, images, and
structure and how one part of the work relates to other parts and to the whole. Below are
guide questions when doing a formalistic criticism.

- How do various elements of the work reinforce its meaning?

- What recurring patterns (repeated or related words, images, etc.) can you find? What is the
effect of these patterns or motifs?
- How does the writer’s diction reveal or reflect the work’s meaning?
- What is the effect of the plot, and what parts specifically produce that effect?
- What figures of speech are used?
- Is there a relationship between the beginning and the end of the story?
- What tone and mood are created at various parts of the work?
- What is the relationship of each part of the work to the work as a whole? How are the parts
related to one another?
- Who is narrating or telling what happens in the work?
- Who are the major and minor characters, what do they represent, and how do they relate to
one another?
- What is its setting? How is the setting related to what we know of the characters and their
actions? To what extent is the setting symbolic?

2. Moralistic Approach
This approach focuses on themes, view of the world, moral statements, author’s philosophy,
and values. Below are guide questions when doing a moralistic criticism.

- What view of life does the story present? Which character best articulates this viewpoint?
- According to this work’s view of life, what is mankind’s relationship to God? To the
universe?
- What moral statement, if any, does this story make? Is it explicit or implicit?
- What is the author’s attitude toward his world? Toward fate? Toward God?
- What is the author’s conception of good and evil?
- What does the work say about the nature of good or evil?
- What does the work say about human nature?

3. Marxist Approach
This approach focuses on man’s issues with power and money in society, politics, religion,
and business. Below are guide questions when doing a Marxist criticism.

- What role does class in society play in the literary work?

- What is the author's analysis of class relations?
- How do characters overcome oppression?
- In what ways does the work serve as propaganda for the status quo; or does it try to
undermine it?
- What does the literary work say about oppression; or are social conflicts ignored or
blamed elsewhere?
- Does the literary work propose some form of utopian vision as a solution to the problems
encountered?
- What is the relationship between the characters and their society?
- Does the story address societal issues such as race, gender, and class?
- How do social forces shape the power relationships between classes of people in the story?
Who has the power and who doesn’t? Why?
- How does the story reflect urban, rural, or suburban values?
- What does the work say about economic or social power? Who has it and who doesn’t?
- Does the story address issues of economic exploitation? What role does money play?
- How do economic conditions determine the direction of the characters’ lives?
- Does the work challenge or affirm the social order it depicts?
- Is the protagonist’s struggle seen as symbolic of a larger class struggle?
- How does the small world of the story reflect the large world of the society in which it was
composed?
- Do any of the characters correspond to types of government such as a dictatorship,
democracy, communism, socialism, fascism, etc.? What attitudes toward these political
structures or systems are expressed in the work?

Now that you have learned the different factors to be considered in critiquing a literary work,
read the poem below, then answer the questions that follow. Do this on another sheet of
paper.

Questions:
1. Formalistic Approach
- What figures of speech are evident in the poem? Explain how they could affect the message
of the poem.
-Irony was evident in the poem since he had everything than any person wanted but still
ended up at a bad state. It affected the poem as an unexpected turn of event.
- Explain the connotation of the word “downtown” in Stanza 1. Can you give other words
from the peom that have connotative meanings? How does the author’s choice of words
higlight the overall meaning of the poem?
- The word “downtown”can be meant as the city. Other words in the poem that gives
connotative meanings are sole and crown which meant as “head to toe”. The author’s
choice of words gave the reader a chance to analyze the poem further to reveal the
hidden message.
- What is the tone of Stanzas 1-3? Cite lines to support your answer.
-The tones of stanzas 1-3 was joyful since they were describing Richard Cory’s image in
their town.
2. Moralistic Approach
- Why do you think Richard Cory killed himself?
-He may be experiencing problems that no one can see.
- Why do you think the poem ended so abruptly with Richard Cory's death?
-The author may have ended it quickly since it was unexpected that this happened to
Richard Cory and to give the readers a realization that not all wealthy people are
happy.
- What distinctions does the poem make between our interior and exterior lives?
-It gives a meaning that not all we see outside are how we feel and how we see ourselves
inside. We are the only people who can only understand how we really feel.
- What does the poem tell us about being rich or being poor?
-The poem tells us that no matter how materialistic we are and how much money we
have, it doesn’t matter if we don’t value our selves.
3. Marxist Approach
- What does the author’s use of “pavement” instead of “sidewalk” tell us about how society
groups people?
- The pavement symbolizes the bystanders that watch Richard Cory.
- What groups of people do the words “meat” and “bread” represent? Why do you say so?
-These may have symbolized the poor and the wealthy since those who are fortunate can
afford meat while those who are not remain having bread.
- Who do you think is encompassed in the poem's use of "we"? What's the effect of this
collective voice?
-It has an effect on everyone since everyone may be experiencing this also in real life.
- What's up with all of the kingly metaphors in the poem? Why does the voice of the poem
focus so much on Richard Cory's regal nature?
-It focused there since the poem wanted to portray the message that no matter how rich
a person is, if he/she feels empty inside then every material has no value.

WHAT I CAN DO
Read the short story below, then critique the literary work using the formalist,
moralistic, and Marxist literary theories.

Guide Questions
1. Explain the irony in Prospero’s name.
2. What does the color scheme for each room represent about life?
3. Why do the rooms appear in the order they do – from east to west?
4. Why is Prospero upset with the intruder’s arrival at the party? What does this tell us about
how they think about death?
5. Do the characters survive the Red Death? What does this tell us about death in particular?
6. Prospero has “protected” his guests from the outside world. What words or phrases does
the author use to support the idea that the guests are well cared for and protected? What does
this scenario tell us about social classes?
Lesson 4
Literary Theories:
Feminist, Historical, Reader Response

WHAT’S MORE
To prepare you in critiquing a literary work using the feminist, historical, and reader
response approaches, study the given pre-writing, drafting, and revising tips.

1. Feminist Criticism
● Pre-writing
- If you can choose the text you will examine for your feminist critique, you may want to
select something by a female writer, especially if the work has not already received a good bit
of notice from feminist critics.
- Some of the questions you can ask include the following:
✔ What stereotypes of women do you find? Are they oversimplified, demeaning,
untrue? For example, are all blondes understood to be dumb?
✔ Examine the roles women play in a work. Are they minor, supportive, powerless,
obsequious? Or are they independent and influential?
✔ Is the narrator a character in the narrative? If so, how does the male or female point
of view affect the reader’s perceptions?
✔ How do the male characters talk about the female characters?
✔ How do the male characters treat the female characters?
✔ How do the female characters act toward the male characters?
✔ Who are the socially and politically powerful characters?
✔ What attitudes toward women are suggested by the answers to these questions?
✔ Do the answers to these questions indicate that the work lends itself more naturally to a
study of differences between the male and female characters, a study of power imbalances
between the sexes (or perhaps other groups), or a study of unique female experience?
✔ Can any characters be viewed not simply as male or female but as a collection of
many possible sexualities? That is, do they exhibit various degrees of
heterosexuality, homosexuality, or bisexuality?
✔ Is sexuality assumed to be stable and static or dynamic and changing?
✔ Is the sexuality of the characters affected by the experience of race and class?
✔ Is heterosexuality viewed as the norm against which other sexual identities are
measured?

● Drafting and Revising

⮚ Introduction
- One interesting way to open your discussion is to point out why a feminist theory
critique is particularly appropriate for the text you are analyzing.
- Other rationales for a feminist theory analysis may lie in the characters, the situation,
the cultural context in which a text was produced, or the author. Explaining why it is
a fitting one will help your reader follow the analysis more easily.
- An alternative beginning is to connect the characters or events of the situation with
a similar situation that has actually occurred. Making such a connection can be
powerful.
⮚ Body
- Because feminist studies serve so many different interests, you can try working within one
of these categories: studies of difference, studies of power, or studies of the female
experience.
- If the issue of gender differences attracts your attention, you will almost certainly
want to select a work by a female writer for your study because you will be looking
for what makes a female text different from one written by a male. You can ask
questions such as the following:
✔ Is the genre one that is traditionally associated with male or female writers?
✔ Is the subject one that is of particular interest to women, perhaps one that is
of importance to women’s lives?
✔ What one-word label would accurately capture the voice of the narrator? Why
is it appropriate?
✔ Is the work sympathetic to female characters?
✔ Are the female characters and the situations in which they are placed
presented with complexity and in detail?
✔ How does the language differ from what you would expect from a writer of the
opposite gender?
✔ How does the way the female characters talk influence the reader’s perception
of them?
✔ What are the predominant images? Why are they (or why are they not)
associated with women’s lives?
✔ Does the implied audience of the work include or exclude women? In the case
of a male writer, is the work addressed to a mixed audience, or does it sound
more like one man telling a story to another man?
✔ How do the answers to these questions support a case for this work’s having
been written in a particularly masculine or feminine style?

- If you are interested in the relationships of the characters or in how things get done in the
world of the text, you will probably investigate the balance (or imbalance) of power depicted
in it. The following questions can help you arrive at some conclusions.
✔ Who is primarily responsible for making decisions in the world depicted: men
or women?
✔ Do the female characters play an overt part in decision making? Or do they
work behind the scenes?
✔ Who holds positions of authority and influence?
✔ Who controls the finances?
✔ Do the female characters play traditional female roles? Or do they assume
some unusual ones?
✔ Are there any instances in which women are unfairly treated or ill treated?
✔ What kind of accomplishments do the female characters achieve?
✔ Are the female characters honored for their accomplishments?
✔ Do the male characters consult the female characters before taking action, or
do they merely inform them of it?
✔ Does the story approve or disapprove, condemn or glorify, the power structure
as revealed by your answers to these questions?
✔ How is the female reader co-opted into accepting or rejecting the images of
women presented in the work?

- You may be interested in examining how the unique female experience is captured in the
work you are to analyze. If so, you will want to consider questions like the
following:
✔ Does the text reject the idea of a male norm of thinking and behavior that is stable and
unchanging? If so, where?
✔ Is the writer’s style characterized by blanks, gaps, silences, or circularity?
✔ Are images of the female body important in the text?
✔ Do you find references to female diseases or bodily functions?
✔ Does motherhood, or those attitudes and behaviors characteristic of
motherhood, figure significantly in the text?
✔ Can you find instances in which the traditional binaries of male/female,
intellectual/emotional, objective/subjective, and active/passive are reversed?
✔ What new circumstances do the reversals suggest?
✔ Can you find instances in which wholeness rather than otherness is associated
with the female characters?
✔ What generalizations about the uniqueness of the female experience can you
make based on the answers to these questions?
⮚ Body
- One way to organize the body of your discussion is to address these topics: the world of the
author, personal and public; the historical-cultural environment of the text, both the one it
depicts and the one in which it was produced; and the internal world of the text itself, the
discourses that generate the narrative.
- Be attentive to the power structure that is in place, questioning inequalities and pointing out
social forces that build community and those that destroy it. Information about the author’s
life can shed light on the forces and issues that helped create the text.
- You can ask some of the following questions:
✔ What were the formative experiences in the writer’s life?
✔ Who were the significant people in the writer’s life?
✔ What texts affected the writer’s thinking?
✔ What religious-spiritual issues were important to the writer?
✔ What was the writer’s general political stance?
✔ What social class did the writer’s family occupy?
✔ As an adult what social class did the writer aspire to belong to?
✔ How much social power did the writer’s family have?
✔ From how many different social classes and types of work did the writer draw
friends?
✔ What social issues were important to the writer?
✔ What public roles did the writer assume?
✔ What one-word label would describe the voice of the narrator in this text?
- You will want to include social actions, relationships, and documents – all situations
that involve exchanges of power. You may ask questions that have something to do
with historical events of the period, as follows:
✔ What were the major cultural and historical events of the period? What
connections do they have with the text?
✔ What resistance was there to these events, and what was its source?
✔ What were the major controversies of the period? Are they explicitly or obliquely
mentioned in the text?
✔ What or who represented the power bases in the controversy? Which group was
dominant? Which ones were not?
✔ What professions and disciplines held power? The church? The law? Science?
Academia?
✔ Who were the major figures of the period?
✔ What characteristics did those figures embody that were deemed to be
admirable? Which were deemed to be objectionable?
✔ What was the source of their power and influence?
✔ Who or what opposed (or at least resented) their power and influence?
✔ Where do you see power operating secretly—that is, not openly or explicitly?
✔ How did those who held power prevent opposition to or subversion of it?
- Another avenue of inquiry regarding the work and the world outside of it deals with
written texts of the period. It asks questions such as these:
✔ How is the style of this text similar to or different from other literary texts of the
era?
✔ How do the purposes of this text repeat, conflict with, or repeat other texts of the
day?
✔ How does this text fit (or not fit) into the nonliterary texts of the same period?
✔ How has this text influenced and been influenced by other texts?
- A third group of questions dealing with the work of literature and the world beyond it
examines the interactions of the two, including the connections between the text and
the world it depicts, the one in which it was published, and those of subsequent periods.
You can ask questions such as these:
✔ What would have attracted readers to this work at the time it was published? In
later periods?
✔ What was the work’s public and critical reception at the time of publication?
✔ What has changed about the way it has been read since publication?
✔ What models of behavior does this work support?
✔ What do the answers to the preceding four questions tell you about the various
cultures represented?
✔ How have values changed since the work was published?
✔ How have values changed since the period in which the work is set?
✔ Has the text changed its culture or any other culture? If so, how?
- You will also need to look intently at the text itself as a response to both of the other
two areas of interest. To determine what commentary the text offers regarding the
larger world outside itself, you can ask the following questions:
✔ What various discourses do you meet in the text? Which ones are powerful?
✔ Which represent the experience of people who have traditionally been
overlooked, marginalized, or misrepresented?
✔ What conflicts do you discern in the text between the discourse of the powerful
and that of the powerless?
✔ How do conflicting discourses in the text influence and shape each other by
agreeing, complementing, or contradicting each other?
✔ How does this text support a particular discourse? What ideology does that
support suggest?
✔ What are the social rules observed in the text?
✔ Is the text critical of those rules, or does it treat them as models of behavior?
✔ How does the text support or challenge the values, beliefs, and/or practices of
the culture it depicts?
✔ What does the ideological stance imply about the culture it depicts, that of the
author’s times, and that of subsequent periods?
✔ How does this text suggest that history does not necessarily proceed in an
orderly, positive direction?
● Pre-writing
- To find a starting point for exploring where your personal experience and the text converge,
you will find it helpful to make a few personal observations before, during, and after reading
the text. You may ask questions such as these:
✔ How do I feel about reading this piece? Am I eager to begin? Curious about what
I will find? Reluctant?
✔ What do I already know about this work or this author?
✔ What do I already know about the time, place, or characters depicted?
✔ What does the title suggest to me?

- Noting your responses in a journal or log during a first reading can help you make
generalizations later. Regardless of how far along you are in your thinking, here are some
suggestions to consider during the initial reading:
✔ Does the work include quotations that I would like to copy and save? What
questions would I like to ask the author?
✔ What objections can I raise to what I am reading?
✔ Where do I experience confusion, disagreement, approval, or any other attitude
or feeling?
✔ What experiences does the text bring to mind that I can describe or narrate?
- You can also make short responses after the first reading. These responses may be
appropriate for a journal entry, or you may write them as separate texts. As soon as you finish
reading the work, describe how you feel about it.
✔ Write a brief summary of the plot.
✔ Free write about a single line from a poem or about a sentence from a piece of
prose.
✔ Identify a line or an image that immediately caught your attention or that you
remember clearly. Why do you find it to be powerful?
✔ Think of someone or some experience that a character or situation in this work
brings to mind.
✔ List the things you like about the work. Why do you like them?
✔ List those aspects of it that bother you. Why do they bother you?
✔ Identify any passages you do not understand.
✔ Choose what you would tell someone about this work if you could make only
one comment.
✔ Consider how you might have acted had you been one of the characters.
✔ What else would you like to know about the characters or events?
✔ What values, beliefs, or assumptions of your own does this work affirm?
✔ Which of your values, beliefs, or assumptions does it challenge?
✔ Compose a letter (not to be sent) to the author or to one of the characters.
✔ Speculate on who should play the various roles in a filmed version of the work.

WHAT I CAN DO
Choose a literary selection (e.g., short story, novel, poem, etc.), then write a critique
about it using any of the following literary theories:
1. Feminist
2. Historical
3. Reader Response
Be guided by the given pre-writing, drafting, and revising techniques. Do this on
another sheet of paper.