Western Mindanao State University

Naga Campus
Sta. Clara, Naga, Zamboanga Sibugay

LIT 102 – WORLD LITERATURE

Instructor:Rodrigo, Jr. A. Batobalunos

Topics: A. Genres of Literature

B. Elements of Fiction

Objectives:

1. identify literary elements of common genres:
2. experience and develop interest in literature, which includes non-fiction and fiction; and
3. improve comprehension by interpreting, analyzing, synthesizing and evaluating written text

Let’s Get Started !

Activity 1.
Directions:In the first column of the table below, list down your most remarkable, salient
encounters with the literature in the world. On the second column, explain why you think each
encounter is an experience of literature.

MY ENCOUNTER WHY?
 Read and brood over:

What is GENRE?What is it?

.
GENRE
It is a category of literature identified by form, content, and style.  
It allows literary critics and students to classify compositions within the larger canon of
literature.
Genre (pronounced ˈzhän-rə) is derived from the French phrase genre meaning “kind” or
“type.”
FICTION
Refers to a story that comes from a writer’s imagination, as opposed to one based
strictly on fact or a true story.
In the literary world, a work of fiction can refer to a short story, novella, and novel,
which is the longest form of literary prose.
Every work of fiction falls into a sub-genre, each with its own style, tone, elements,
and storytelling devices.

GENRES OF LITERATURE

Genres of literature are important to learn about. The two main categories separating the
different genres of literature are fiction and nonfiction. There are several genres of
literature that fall under the nonfiction category.
Nonfiction sits in direct opposition to fiction. Examples from both the fiction and
nonfiction genres of literature are explained in detail below.

TYPES OF NON-FICTION

Essays are a short literary composition that reflects the author’s outlook or point. A short
literary composition on a particular theme or subject, usually in prose and generally
analytic, speculative, or interpretative.

TYPES OF ESSAY
A. Narrative Essay
Narration means you're telling a story from a certain viewpoint, and there is usually a reason for
the telling. All narrative essays have characters, setting, a climax, and most importantly, a plot.
The plot is the focus of the story and is usually revealed chronologically, but there are sometimes
flash-forwards and flashbacks. If you're looking to write a personal narrative essay, here are
some tips to get you started.

When writing a narrative essay, remember to:

 Include sensory and emotional details, so the reader will experience the story, not just
read about it.
 Allow the story to support the point you're making, and make reference to that point in
the first sentence.
 Write in the first or third person.
 Example:Hub Fans Bid Kid Adieu (Iohn Updike

B. Descriptive Essay
Descriptive essays describe the traits and characteristics of people, objects, events, and feelings
in intricate detail. What's being described will be thoroughly examined. For example, if you were
describing roses, you might want to detail:
 Their origin
 Their appearance
 Their color
 Their fragrance

Example: The Thunderstorm

The Life of William Shakespeare

When you write a descriptive essay, you want to involve the reader's senses and emotions. For
example, you could say, "I got sleepy." Or, you could write, "While I waited for Santa, my
eyelids grew heavy, the lights on the tree began to blur, and my head began to droop." The
second excerpt provides vivid detail, allowing readers to feel like they're there.

C. Expository
Expository essays compare, explore, and discuss problems. While there's a bit of a storytelling
element to them, their purpose is greater than that. It's always to explain some integral concept to
the reader. As such, they inform, describe, and explain.

When writing an expository essay, the text needs to:

 Be concise and easy to understand.

 Offer different views on a subject.
 Report on a situation or event.
 Explain something that may be difficult to understand.

Example:Malcolm X's "Learning to Read."

D. Argumentative
In an argumentative essay, the writer is trying to convince the reader of something. He or she
will demonstrate the validity or falsity of a topic. The writer's position will be backed up with
evidence, including statistics or the opinion of experts. In these essays, the writer isn't merely
offering an opinion, but making an argument for or against something, and supporting that
argument with data.To write an argumentative essay, it's important to research and back up what
you say in the text
Example:Society Begins at Home
 Biography is a written account of another person’s life.

Autobiography gives the history of a person’s life, written or told by that person. Often
written in Narrative form of their person’s life.

Speech is the faculty or power of speaking; oral communication; ability to express one’s
thoughts and emotions by speech, sounds, and gesture. Generally delivered in the form of
an address or discourse.

(This genre of literature offers opinions or conjectures on facts and reality. This includes
biographies, history, essays, speech, and narrative non-fiction. Nonfiction opposes fiction and is
distinguished from those fiction genres of literature like poetry and dram

GENRES OF FICTION

Drama is the genre of literature that’s subject for compositions is dramatic art in the way
it is represented. This genre is stories composed in verse or prose, usually for theatrical
performance, where conflicts and emotion are expressed through dialogue and action.

Poetry is verse and rhythmic writing with imagery that evokes an emotional response
from the reader. The art of poetry is rhythmical in composition, written or spoken. This
genre of literature is for exciting pleasure by beautiful, imaginative, or elevated thoughts.

Fantasy is the forming of mental images with strange or other worldly settings or
characters; fiction which invites suspension of reality.

Humor is the faculty of perceiving what is amusing or comical. Fiction full of fun, fancy,
and excitement which meant to entertain. This genre of literature can actually be seen and
contained within all genres.

Fable is a story about supernatural or extraordinary people. Usually in the form of

narration that demonstrates a useful truth. In Fables, animals often speak as humans that
are legendary and supernatural tales.

Fairy Tales or wonder tales are a kind of folktale or fable. Sometimes the stories are
about fairies or other magical creatures, usually for children.

Science Fiction is a story based on impact of potential science, either actual or imagined.
Science fiction is one of the genres of literature that is set in the future or on other
planets.

Short Story is fiction of such briefness that is not able to support any subplots.

Realistic Fiction is a story that can actually happen and is true to real life.

Folklore are songs, stories, myths, and proverbs of a person of “folk” that was handed
down by word of mouth. Folklore is a genre of literature that is widely held, but false and
based on unsubstantiated beliefs.

Historical Fiction is a story with fictional characters and events in a historical setting.

Horror is an overwhelming and painful feeling caused by literature that is frightfully

shocking, terrifying, or revolting. Fiction in which events evoke a feeling of dread in both
the characters and the reader.
 Tall Tale is a humorous story with blatant exaggerations, swaggering heroes who do the
impossible with nonchalance.

Legend is a story that sometimes of a national or folk hero. Legend is based on fact but
also includes imaginative material.

Mystery is a genre of fiction that deals with the solution of a crime or the unraveling of
secrets. Anything that is kept secret or remains unexplained or unknown.

Mythology is a type of legend or traditional narrative. This is often based in part on

historical events, that reveals human behavior and natural phenomena by its symbolism;
often pertaining to the actions of the gods. A body of myths, as that of a particular people
or that relating to a particular person.

FICTION IN VERSE

It is full-length novels with plot, subplots, themes, with major and minor characters.
Fiction of verse is one of the genres of literature in which the narrative is usually
presented in blank verse form.

(The genre of Fiction can be defined as narrative literary works whose content is produced by
the imagination and is not necessarily based on fact. In fiction something is feigned, invented, or
imagined; a made-up story)The Oxford English Dictionary 
 Application!

LIT 102 – WORLD LITERATURE

LIT Exercise 2

Name:________________________________________________Score:___________________
Course/Year:__________________________________________ Date: ___________________

General Instructions: Read, understand and follow all the instructions carefully. Erasure /
alteration means wrong. Be careful.

Let’s Make it Happen !

Direction: Using the table below, write down examples of the different genres of literature
studied in this lesson. Provide ways on how these genres express.

NON-FICTION EXAMPLE HOW DOES THIS

EXPRESS?

1. Essays

2. Biography
3. Autobiography

4. Speech

FICTION EXAMPLE HOW DOES THIS

EXPRESS?

1. Fable

2. Legend

3. Mythology

4. Short Story

5. Folklore
 6. Horror

7. Mystery

LIT 102 – WORLD LITERATURE

LIT Exercise 3

Name:________________________________________________Score:___________________
Course/Year:__________________________________________ Date: ___________________

Directions: Read, understand, analyze and interpret the masterpiece shared by Bunty Rane.
Identify a statement or phrase or sentence (as many as you can) subjected to narrative,
descriptive, expository and argumentative from the whole essay. Write your answer in the
columns provided below. Any form of alterations will be considered wrong answers. (50pts)
LIFE IS SHORT
Life is beautiful but not always easy, it has problems, too, and the challenge lies in facing them
with courage, letting the beauty of life act like a balm, which makes the pain bearable, during
trying times, by providing hope
Happiness, sorrow, victory, defeat, day-night are the two sides of me coin. Similarly life is full of
moments of joy, pleasure, success and comfort punctuated by misery, defeat, failures and
problems. There is no human being on Earth, strong, powerful, wise or rich, who has not
experienced, struggle, suffering or failure.

No doubt, life is beautiful and every moment – a celebration of being alive, but one should be
always ready to face adversity and challenges. A person who has not encountered difficulties in
life can never achieve success.

Difficulties test the courage, patience, perseverance and true character of a human being.
Adversity and hardships make a person strong and ready to face the challenges of life with
equanimity. There is no doubt that there can be no gain without pain. It is only when one toils
and sweats it out that success is nourished and sustained.

Thus, life is and should not be just a bed of roses; thorns are also a part of it and should be
accepted by us just as we accept the beautiful side of life.

The thorns remind one of how success and happiness can be evasive and thus not to feel
disappointed and disheartened rather remember that the pain of thorns is short-lived, and the
beauty of life would soon overcome the prick of thorns.
Those, who are under the impression that life is a bed of roses are disillusioned soon and become
victims of depression and frustration. One who faces difficulties with courage and accepts
success without letting it go to its head is the one who experience real happiness, contentment
and peace in life.

Those, who think, that good times last forever, easily succumb to pressure during difficulties.
They do not put in required hard work and efforts because they break down easily.

You can take the example of a student, who burns the mid night oil, makes sacrifices and resists
temptations so that he can perform well. Similarly, a successful executive has to face the ups and
downs of life, not forgetting that life is a mix of success and failure, joy and sorrow.

If he loses hope during difficult times, he would not achieve success and would be replaced by
others. Even the strongest Kings and Emperors have had their cup of woes.

Life has not been a bed of roses for them. The adage ‘Uneasy lays the head that wears the crown’
has been rightly used for people, who are successful and are enjoying power and authority.

To sum up, life is beautiful just as roses but it has challenges which are like thorns and have to
be faced and overcome by all. Those, who accept these, challenges and succeed, are the ones,
who know how to live life in its true sense. Thus, enjoy life but also be prepared to bear the
pricks of pain.

Column A Column B
Types of Essay

A. Narrative

B. Descriptive

C. Expository
 D. Argumentative

LIT 102 – WORLD LITERATURE

LIT Exercise 3

Name:________________________________________________Score:___________________
Course/Year:__________________________________________ Date: ___________________

Directions: Choose one non-fiction category that you are familiar with. This can be the last non-
fiction that you have come across or the one that made the most impact to you. Criticize it using
the guide questions provided below.

Categories:

1. Essays

2. Biography

3. Autobiography

Category:__________

1. What is it about? What is it for?

2. What is it made for?

 3. What is its style?

4. How good is it?

4. Speech

LIT 102 – WORLD LITERATURE

Exercise 4

Name:________________________________________________Score:___________________
Course/Year:__________________________________________ Date: ___________________

A. Essay
Directions: For 151 exact words, write your own thoughts, ideas, notions,
reactions, sagacities about this titillating question: Is there anything worse than
death for you?

_____________________________________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________________________________
__________.

B. Speech
For 157 exact words, write your own thoughts, ideas, notions, reactions, sagacities
about this spellbinding question: Do you think there’s a difference between living and
existing?
_____________________________________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________________________________
_________.

Items Points
Content and Observation of Language Structure 12 Points
Organization of ideas 10 Points
Timeliness 8 Points
TOTAL SCORE 30 Points

Rated by: __________________________________

Instructor