This is a primary activity administered to determine your baseline

knowledge and preparedness for the lesson.

Activity: Introduction to Literature

I. Direction: Answer the following questions.

1. What is literature?
Literature broadly is any collection of written work, but it is also used more narrowly for writings
specifically considered to be an art form, especially prose fiction, drama, and poetry. Literature, as
an art form, can also include works in various non-fiction genres, such
as autobiography, diaries, memoir, letters, and the essay. Within its broad definition, literature
includes non-fictional books, articles or other printed information on a particular subject.

2. How would you describe the literature in the Philippines?

Philippine literature is the literature associated with the Philippines and includes the legends of
prehistory, and the colonial legacy of the Philippines, written in both Indigenous, and Hispanic
languages. Most of the notable literature of the Philippines was written during the Spanish period
and the first half of the 20th century in Spanish language. Philippine literature is written
in Spanish, English, Tagalog, and other native Philippine languages.

3. What is the significance of literature to culture in tradition?

Literature allows a person to step back in time and learn about life on Earth from the ones who
walked before us. We can gather a better understanding of culture and have a greater
appreciation of them. We learn through the ways history is recorded, in the forms of manuscripts
and through speech itself.

II. Direction: Explain the different types of literary genre.

1. Poetry
Poetry uses forms and conventions to suggest differential interpretations of words, or to
evoke emotive responses. Devices such as assonance, alliteration, onomatopoeia,
and rhythm may convey musical or incantatory effects. The use of ambiguity, symbolism, irony,
and other stylistic elements of poetic diction often leaves a poem open to multiple interpretations.
Similarly, figures of speech such as metaphor, simile, and metonymy establish a resonance
between otherwise disparate images—a layering of meanings, forming connections previously not
perceived. Kindred forms of resonance may exist, between individual verses, in their patterns of
rhyme or rhythm.

Chapter I: Introduction to Literature 1

2. Prose
Prose is a form of written (or spoken) language that usually exhibits a natural flow of
speech and grammatical structure—an exception is the narrative device stream of
consciousness. It is derived from the Old French prose, which in turn originates in
the Latin expression prosa oratio (literally, straightforward or direct speech). Works of philosophy,
history, economics, etc., journalism, and most fiction (an exception is the verse novel), are
examples of works written in prose.

3. Drama
Drama is the specific mode of fiction represented in performance: a play, opera, mime, ballet,
etc., performed in a theatre, or on radio or television. Considered as a genre of poetry in general,
the dramatic mode has been contrasted with the epic and the lyrical modes ever since.

4. Non-fiction
Nonfiction is any document or media content that intends, in good faith, to present only truth and
accuracy regarding information, events, or people. Nonfictional content may be presented
either objectively or subjectively. Sometimes taking the form of a story, nonfiction is one of the
fundamental divisions of narrative writing (specifically, prose)— in contrast to fiction, which offers
information, events, or characters expected to be partly or largely imaginary, or else leaves open if
and how the work refers to reality.

5. Media
Media are the communication outlets or tools used to store and deliver information or data. The
term refers to components of the mass media communications industry, such as print
media, publishing, the news media, photography, cinema, broadcasting (radio and
television), digital media, and advertising.

Chapter I: Introduction to Literature 2