Week 5

Meeting 5, Lesson 5
 Who’s Here?
Patience
Resilience

Reverence
What can you say about
our country’s response to
the global pandemic?
 Critical
Approaches
Writing a in
Critique
Using appropriate critical writing a critique
Today, you will learn how to …
Compare

01 Differentiate
Critic vs. Critique 02 the various approaches writing
a critique.

Criticize Apply
03 the texts using the different
approaches of criticism. 04 the appropriate critical
approaches in writing your
critique.
“Interpretation is the revenge of the
intellectual upon art.”

― Susan Sontag
 02
Critic
Vs.
Critique
What is their difference?
 Let us see …

CRITIC
CRITIQUE
This has the stress on the first syllable: CRI-tic. A
critic is a person who judges or evaluates something. cri-TIQUE has the stress on the second
syllable, plus the ee sound as in weak. this
word can be a verb or a noun, and it refers
to evaluating and analyzing something,
identifying both its good points and its bad
points.
 People who are critics perform the action of critiquing things (remember, critique means to identify
both positive and negative aspects), but sometimes the word critic is also used to describe a person
who only says negative things, a person who criticizes.

There’s a saying, “Everyone’s a critic” – we often say this when people are criticizing (saying negative
things about) something, even people who don’t really have much knowledge about the area.

a careful analysis of an argument to determine what is said, how well the points are made, what
assumptions underlie the argument, what issues are overlooked, and what implications are drawn
from such observations.

It is a systematic, yet personal response and evaluation of what you read. We often critique books,
art, movies… the judges on talent shows like cooking shows or singing shows will critique the
performance of the cooks or singers.
 critiques can be to carefully
analyze a variety of works
01 such02 as: 03
CREATIVE RESEARCH MEDIA
WORKS
novels, exhibits, film, monographs, journal articles, news reports, feature
images, poetry systematic reviews, theories articles
CRITIQU
E
Like an essay, a critique uses a formal, academic writing style and
has a clear structure, that is, an introduction, body and conclusion.
However, the body of a critique includes a summary of the work
and a detailed evaluation. The purpose of an evaluation is to
gauge the usefulness or impact of a work in a particular field.
 Why write critiques
PURPOSES OF WRITING CRITIQUES

A knowledge of the An understanding of the work’s

work’s subject area or purpose, intended audience,
related works. development of arguments
structure of evidence or creative
style.

A recognition of the strengths and

weaknesses of the work.
Before you start writing, it is important to have a
thorough understanding of the work that will be
Read/watch/listen to the work
critiqued. Consider how the work relates
to a broader issue or context.
to critique. Make notes on key parts of
the work.
Step 1 Step 3 Step 5

Step 2 Step 4
Study the work under Develop an understanding of the
discussion. main argument or purpose being
expressed in the work.
Critical 03

approac
hes
You can use these in expressing your
views.
 1. formalism
This approach regards literature as “a
unique form of human knowledge that
needs to be examined on its own
terms.” All the elements necessary for
understanding the work are contained
within the work itself.
Of particular interest to the
formalist critic are the elements of
form—style, structure, tone,
imagery, etc.—that are found
within the text. A primary goal for
formalist critics is to determine
how such elements work together
with the text’s content to shape its
effects upon readers.
 Questions to be asked
Before using formalistic approach
What relationship is What recurring patterns What is the effect of
there between tone and (repeated or related words, How does the author
these patterns or create tone and mood?
mood and the effect of images, etc.) can you find? motifs?
the story?
How is the work’s How do various
structure unified? elements of the work
reinforce its meaning?

How does repetition How does the writer’s

reinforce the theme(s)? diction reveal or reflect
the work’s meaning?

What is the effect of the What figures of speech

plot, and what parts are used? (metaphors,
specifically produce similes, etc.)
that effect?
Note the writer’s use of
paradox, irony, symbol, What effects are Is there a relationship What tone and mood
plot, characterization, produced? Do any of these between the beginning are created at various
and style of narration. relate to one another or to and the end of the story? parts of the work?
the theme?
2. Gender Criticism
The bulk of gender criticism,
however, is feminist and takes as a
central precept that the patriarchal
attitudes that have dominated
western thought have resulted,
consciously or unconsciously, in
literature “full of unexamined
This approach ‘male-produced’ assumptions.”
“examines how sexual
identity influences the
creation and reception
of literary works.”

Originally an offshoot of feminist movements, gender criticism

today includes a number of approaches, including the so-called
“masculinist” approach recently advocated by poet Robert Bly.
 3. Feminist Approach
attempts to correct this imbalance by analyzing and
combatting such attitudes—by questioning, for example, why
none of the characters in Shakespeare’s play Othello ever
challenge the right of a husband to murder a wife accused of
adultery. Other goals of feminist critics include “analyzing
how sexual identity influences the reader of a text” and
“examining how the images of men and women in
imaginative literature reflect or reject the social forces that
have historically kept the sexes from achieving total equality.”
examines images of women and concepts of the
feminine in myth and literature; uses the
psychological, archetypal, and sociological
approaches; often focuses on female characters who
have been neglected in previous criticism. Feminist
critics attempt to correct or supplement what they
regard as a predominantly male-dominated critical
perspective.
 Questions to be asked for
Admin
Cafeteria Feministic Approach
How are women’s lives portrayed in the work?
Is the form and content of the work influenced by the writer’s gender?
How do male and female characters relate to one another? Are these
Communications
relationships sources of conflict? Are these conflicts resolved?
Electrical Does the work challenge or affirm traditional views of women?
How do the images of women in the story reflect patriarchal social forces that
Engines
have impeded women’s efforts to achieve full equality with men?
What marital expectations are imposed on the characters? What effect do these
Medbay
expectations have?
What behavioral expectations are imposed on the characters? What effect do
Navigation
these expectations have?
If a female character were male, how would the story be different (and vice
Reactor
versa)?
Shields How does the marital status of a character affect her decisions or happiness?
4. Historical
approach
This approach “seeks to understand a literary work by
investigating the social, cultural, and intellectual context that
produced it—a context that necessarily includes the artist’s
biography and milieu.” A key goal for historical critics is to
understand the effect of a literary work upon its original readers.
 Questions to be Asked for
How accurately does
historical Approach
the story depict the
time in which it is set?
How does it reflect the What other literary
time in which it was works may have
written? influenced the writer?

What historical events How does the story

or movements might reflect the attitudes and
have influenced this beliefs of the time in
writer? which it was written or
set?
How would characters
and events in this story
have been viewed by
the writer’s How important is it the
contemporaries? historical context (the
Does the story reveal or contradict Does it provide an opposing view work’s and the reader’s)
the prevailing values of the time in of the period’s prevailing values? to interpreting the
which it was written? work?
5. Reader-Response
Criticism
This approach takes as a fundamental tenet that
“literature” exists not as an artifact upon a printed
page but as a transaction between the physical text
and the mind of a reader. It attempts “to describe what
happens in the reader’s mind while interpreting a text”
and reflects that reading, like writing, is a creative
process.
focused on how human behavior is determined by social, cultural and psychological
structures. It tended to offer a single unified approach to human life that would
embrace all disciplines. The essence of structuralism is the belief that “things cannot
be understood in isolation, they have to be seen in the context of larger structures
which contain them. For example, the structuralist analysis of Donne’s poem, Good
Morrow, demands more focus on the relevant genre, the concept of courtly love,
rather than on the close reading of the formal elements of the text.

6.
STRUCTUR
 6.
SOCIOLOGICA
focuses on man’s relationship to
others in society, politics, religion,
and business.
L APPROACH
 Questions to be asked for
Sociological Approach
Do any of the characters
correspond to types of
government?
How does the microcosm
(small world) of the story
reflect the macrocosm
What is the relationship (large world) of the society Can the protagonist’s
between the characters in which it was composed? struggle be seen as
and their society? symbolic of a larger
class struggle?
Does the story address
societal issues, such as Does the work
race, gender, and class? challenge or affirm the
social order it depicts?
How do social forces
shape the power How do economic
relationships between conditions determine
groups or classes of the direction of the
people in the story? Who characters’ lives?
has the power, and who
doesn’t? Why?
How does the story reflect What does the work say Does the story address
How does the story reflect about economic or social issues of economic
the Great American Dream?? urban, rural, or suburban
values? power? Who has it and who exploitation? What role
doesn’t? does money play?
 Any questions
Type in your message on the chatbox or turn your microphone.
Let Us
Think!
Directions: Compare the following critical
approaches’ definition and the way on how you
are going to use them in an academic essay.
Let Us
Inspect!
Directions: Read the excerpt of the
homily of the Catholic Archbishop of
Manila, Jaime Cardinal Sin and
accomplish the following activities.
Let Us Achieve!
Direction: Read or silently sing
this song entitled “Bahay” by
Gary Granada. Make your
criticism by completing the
graphic organizer.
Blue was
Ejected
 Thanks for
Listening!
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 Resources
● Billanes, Lorna A. (2019). English for Academic and Professional Purposes: Skills and
Strategies for Academic Discourse. Quezon, City: techFactors, Inc.

● Buckley, J. (2004). Fit to Print: The Canadian Student’s Guide to Essay Writing. (6th ed.)
Toronto: Nelson. Hacker, D. (2008). A Canadian Writer’s Reference. (4th ed.) Boston:
Bedford/St. Martin’s

● DepEd Most Essential Learning Competencies (MELCs)