Bachelor of Secondary Education Major in English: Welcome To ND-RVMCC!
Bachelor of Secondary Education Major in English: Welcome To ND-RVMCC!
Bachelor of Secondary Education Major in English: Welcome To ND-RVMCC!
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Complete Name of Student
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WELCOME TO ND-RVMCC!
On this Academic Year under the new normal, we start by
thanking GOD for good health and blessings especially for being able
to continue learning. Using our God-given talents, May we contribute
to our desired development and growth. We hope to create life-giving
outputs for a better community and/or world.
I, Leonard Ruiz Vilbar, your Professor, will journey with you until
the completion of this COURSE PACKAGE.
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COURSE DESCRIPTION
This course focuses on critical issues in contemporary and popular world literature and genres.
This course: CONTEMPORARY AND POPULAR EMERGENT OF LITERATURE is offered to the 1st year
college students of BSED for the first semester, term one in each Academic Year.
COURSE OUTCOMES :
CO1. Define the meaning of literature and popular literature, popular literature in relation to popular culture,
various genres in popular literature classification.
CO2. Identify the characteristics of popular literature, its forms and emerging themes in popular literary works.
CO3. Identify and analyse the historical, social, political, and literary dynamics which foster the development of a
specific genre of popular literature or of a specific theme manifest in popular literature.
COURSE OUTLINE:
This course pack will run for ten (10) weeks which is approximately two and a half (2 ½) months.
There will be eight (8) weeks dedicated to home study learning while the fifth and tenth week will be
appropriated for major examinations, output, presentations and the like.
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The Home Study Learning covers specific 21 st Century Skills to be develop in the students such as
Experiential Learning Skills (learning through experience), Collaboration and Communication Learning
Skills (learning with others) and Critical Thinking and Information Processing Learning Skills (learned and
developed through the structured program itself).
Therefore, this course package consists of modules to be accomplished every week until the end of
the term. All necessary inputs are carefully chosen and made available to facilitate self-paced learning of
students.
COURSE EVALUATION:
For the grading system, please take note of the new grading components as follows:
50% - Assessment output (case study, research, portfolio, news analysis, projects, etc.
20% - Collaboration (peer interaction, peer learning through family interview)
30% - Understanding (learned/developed through teacher’s structured course input)
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PART 1: PRELIMINARIES
OPENING PRAYER
Lord God, we humbly offer you our first class today. As we start this new normal education in the
tertiary level, we pray that you bless us with wisdom. We pray for good health of our teachers, and our
families and we continue to pray for healing. Make us instruments of peace, love and harmony to share
the goodness of our outcome at the end of this module. Amen.
INTRODUCTION
From time out of mine critics have endeavoured without success to define literature. They have all been
more or less able to describe it; they have all fairly well agreed as to many of its chief characteristics; they have
seldom failed in the long run to answer satisfactorily the concrete questions whether a certain piece of writing
belongs or no to literature and yet they have never succeeded in discovering infallible tests by which every reader
can assure himself of the literary or non-literary character of any specific composition.
By the time Pepukai emerged from the kombi at Highfield, it had just gone half past nine. She was thirty minutes late. Kindness had
said she should come at nine or just before. She had followed the directions in the text message: take kombi to Machipisa, get off at
Gwanzura, cross road, walk past Mushandirapamwe Hotel, go left after TM, go past market, saloon (that is how Kindness had spelled it) is
next to butcher.
She found the salon with no problems. From the butchery next door came the whirring sound of a saw on bone. Everything about the salon
spoke of distressed circumstances, the peeling paint outside, the worn chairs and dirty walls inside, the faded posters for Dark and Lovely and
Motions Hair relaxers. This place made her usual hair place in Finsbury Park look like the Aveda in Covent Garden. Then again, none of the
Nigerian or Kenyan women at her salon in London would have done her hair in long thin braids that lasted four months and cost only fifty
dollars. If they had, it would have cost her five hundred pounds and two days or more, if she was lucky.
There were five women inside. Four were standing talking together in a huddle, while the fifth swept the floor. They could have been a
representative sample of the variegated nature of local womanhood. One was large with a big stomach and bottom and skin like caramel,
another was her opposite, thin and sallow with long limbs and dark gums, the third was medium-sized in everything, height, breasts, bottom,
complexion, while the last was short and slight with delicate hands and bones and skin so light it was translucently yellow.
The one thing they all had in common was their hair. It was dressed in the same weave, a mimicry of Rihanna’s latest style with dark hair
tumbling to the shoulder, and reddish hair piled up over one eye so that they had to peer out of the other to look at anything. It was a
hairstyle that neutralized features rather than enhancing them; it suited none of them, giving them all the same aged look. Pepukai thought
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back to the Greek myths she had loved as a child. They looked like the Graeae might have done, had they had one eye each and had there
been four of them.
Away from the group of four, the youngest of the women, not a woman at all, Pepukai realised, but a teenage girl of maybe sixteen or
seventeen at the most, was sweeping the floor, leaving more hair behind her than she swept before her. Her hair was not in the Rihanna
weave of her workmates, but was half done, with her relaxed hair poking out in wisps from one side of her head, while the other half was in
newly-plaited braids.
All five looked up as Pepukai entered. She was the only customer. She felt their eyes on her, giving her that uniquely female up and down
onceover that took in every aspect of her appearance and memorized it for future dissection.
Process Questions:
1. What made the writer—a former “Mary Ward”—decides to write the story from the perspective of the male
students at the school? And why did she choose to use the first-person plural?
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2. What do you think drove Nicodemus to do what he did? It seems possible that he actually liked Zaka and wanted
to have his genuine friendship. Was blackmail the only way for him to get what he wanted?
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3. Is it relevant that Nicodemus is a scholarship student from a poor family, whereas Zaka comes from better
circumstances?
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SUB TOPICS: 3
1. Nature of contemporary popular literature
2. Essence of contemporary and popular literature
3. Significance of contemporary and popular literature
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Q3: What is the best description of contemporary and popular forms of literature?
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LA 2. ONE MINUTE PAPER
Instruction: This is usually done at the end of the session. Answer a brief question in writing.
Main Point:
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What questions from the topic might appear on the next test:
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CLOSING PRAYER
Dear God, thank you so much for blessing our learning today. Continue to bless, inspire and keep us in your
loving care and protection. Bless and protect our family and loved ones with safety. Amen.
REFERENCES:
1. https://www.english-culture.com/the-nature-and-essence-of-literature/ copied July 27, 2020
2. https://www.academia.edu/27650507/ESSENCE_AND_SIGNIFICANCE_OF_LITERATURE copied July 27, 2020
3. https://anelepapers.wordpress.com/2017/01/03/literature-definition-nature-and-function/ copied July 27, 2020
4. http://www.daimonclub.it/lib/A-Short-Summary-Of-English-And-American-Literary-Topics.pdf
Noted by:
APPENDICES
NATURE, ESSENCE AND SIGNIFICANCE OF CONTEMPORARY AND POPULAR LITERATURE
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Appendix 1
Every interpretation of a text is always an authoritarian operation, so, as Hans Magnus Enzensberger argued, it
would require a more open and anarchic reading of the works.
Carl William Brown
WHAT IS LITERATURE
Definition: What is literature? Why do we read it? Why is literature important? Literature is a term used to
describe written or spoken material. Broadly speaking, “literature” is used to describe anything from creative
writing to more technical or scientific works, but the term is most commonly used to refer to works of the creative
imagination, including works of poetry, drama, fiction, and nonfiction. Why do we read literature? Literature
represents a language or a people: culture and tradition.
But, literature is more important than just a historical or cultural artifact. Literature introduces us to new worlds of
experience. We learn about books and literature; we enjoy the comedies and the tragedies of poems, stories, and
plays; and we may even grow and evolve through our literary journey with books.
Ultimately, we may discover meaning in literature by looking at what the author says and how he/she says it. We
may interpret the author’s message. In academic circles, this decoding of the text is often carried out through the
use of literary theory, using a mythological, sociological, psychological, historical, or other approach.
Whatever critical paradigm we use to discuss and analyse literature, there is still an artistic quality to the works.
Literature is important to us because it speaks to us, it is universal, and it affects us. Even when it is ugly, literature
is beautiful.
According to Greenlaw’s theory, and the practice of many scholars, literary study has thus become not merely
closely related to the history of civilization but indeed identical with it. Such study is literary only in the sense that it
is occupied with printed or written matter, necessarily the primary source of most history. It can, of course, be
argued in defence of such a view that historians neglect these problems, that they are too much preoccupied with
diplomatic, military, and economic history, and that thus the literary scholar is justified in invading and taking over a
neighbouring terrain.
Doubtless nobody should be forbidden to enter any area he likes, and doubtless there is much to be said in favour
of cultivating the history of civilization in the broadest terms…
As for the functions of literature, for the time being just think to these two concepts, “art for art’s sake” and “art for
progress”. “Art for art’s sake” is the usual English rendering of a French slogan from the early 19th century, “l’art
pour l’art”, and expresses a philosophy that the intrinsic value of art, and the only “true” art, is divorced from any
didactic, moral or utilitarian function.
Such works are sometimes described as “autotelic”, from the Greek autoteles, “complete in itself”, a concept that
has been expanded to embrace “inner-directed” or “self-motivated” human beings. A Latin version of this phrase,
“Ars gratia artis”, is used as a motto by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer and appears in the circle around the roaring head of
Leo the Lion in its motion picture logo. “L’art pour l’art” (translated as “art for art’s sake”) is credited to Théophile
Gautier (1811–1872), who was the first to adopt the phrase as a slogan.
Appendix 2
Gautier was not, however, the first to write those words: they appear in the works of Victor Cousin, Benjamin
Constant, and Edgar Allan Poe. For example, Poe argues in his essay “The Poetic Principle” (1850), that “We have
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taken it into our heads that to write a poem simply for the poem’s sake […] and to acknowledge such to have been
our design, would be to confess ourselves radically wanting in the true poetic dignity and force: – but the simple
fact is that would we but permit ourselves to look into our own souls we should immediately there discover that
under the sun there neither exists nor can exist any work more thoroughly dignified, more supremely noble, than
this very poem, this poem per se, this poem which is a poem and nothing more, this poem written solely for the
poem’s sake”.
“Art for art’s sake” was a bohemian creed in the nineteenth century, a slogan raised in defiance of those who —
from John Ruskin to the much later Communist advocates of socialist realism — thought that the value of art was to
serve some moral or didactic purpose. “Art for art’s sake” affirmed that art was valuable as art, that artistic pursuits
were their own justification and that art did not need moral justification — and indeed, was allowed to be morally
neutral or subversive…
Literature (origin of term litera w/c means letters) deals with ideas, thoughts and emotions of man – thus it can be
said the literature is the story of man. (Baritugo, et al. 2004)
Literature in its broadest sense is everything that has never been written.
The best way to understand human nature fully and to know a nation completely is to study literature.(Garcia, et al.
1993)
Through literature, we learn the innermost feelings and thoughts of people – the most real; part of themselves,
thus we gain an understanding not only of others, but more importantly, of ourselves and of life itself. (Garcia, et al.
1993)
Literature offers us an experience in which we should participate as we read and test what we read by our own
experience.
Literature does not yield much unless we bring something of ourselves to it.
Literature is a faithful production of life… in a sense it is a product and a commentary on life process.
Literature illuminates life.
Literature is our life’s story including its struggles, ideas, failures, sacrifices and happiness. (Ang,2006)
Literature appeal’s to man’s higher nature and its needs – emotional, spiritual, intellectual and creative. Like all
other forms of art, literature entertains and gives pleasure; it fries the imagination and arouses noble emotions and
it enriches man by enabling him to reflect on life and by filing him with new ideas. (Garcia, et al. 1993)
Literature is one of the seven arts ( i.e., music, dance, painting, sculpture, theathre and architecture) and as such,
literature is a creative product of a creative work the result of which is form and beauty. ( Nuggets, 2004)
Significance of Literature
Studying literature demands a lot of effort and determination in terms of reading. But, once one nurtures the desire
to read, a culture of reading automatically emerges and studying literature subsequently transmutes into an
addictive but positive besotted habit. The packages attached to studying literature include access to the world
through the word, exposure to other cultures in addition to our own, literally transcending into people’s minds and
physical locations, as well as entertainment. So, more literature at undergraduate level at institutions like our
University of Namibia creates a fundamental foundation on which the beginning of the understanding of life can be
drawn. Literature is exceptional in endless ways in which human beings interact with each other. The approach to
access the ways is linked to the self-push in nurturing the desire to read and having passion in matters that are
related to everyday social life. Literature appeals to people’s souls and emotions. It deals with people’s pains,
sufferings, as well as pleasures. The life we live today is reflected in literary works and so is the history of our fore-
parents. For instance in the novel The Other Presence, society is reminded about some of the scientific African ways
of preserving food. Nyathi, for example, writes about the way meat can possibly be preserved and last longer by
stating “…today what hung there was not clothes but meat that was cut into long strings. It was salted and dried so
that it could be preserved and used during the mourning ritual.” In The purple violet of Oshaantu, Neshani Andreas
addresses the issue of domestic violence in the form of particularly spousal abuse. The relationship of the
characters Kauna and Shange is a microcosm of what is really happening in the entire world, for spousal abuse has a
universal definition regardless of geographical location, colour or class. Chinua Achebe’s sequel; Arrow of
Appendix 3
God, Things Fall Apart and No Longer at Ease, show the historical transition in Africa. Arrow of God is about that
time in Africa before colonialism. Things Fall Apart is about the advent of colonialism and how things started falling
apart in Africa. No Longer at Ease focuses on the effects of colonialism on African culture and tradition, noted
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through the characters Isaac Okonkwo and his son Obi Okonkwo. The benefits of studying literature are those of
the imagination and they are very effective. Most works of literature focus on abstract problems and controversial
issues affecting society. Exposure to such literature may stimulate students to reflect logically and critically about
society, race, gender, culture and injustice. I do encourage students to study literature with passion as a tool for
conscientisation which is relatively attractive and relevant to life. Literature is all about us humans and studying it
entails studying ourselves and all that surrounds us. Literature makes us understand and appreciate life. Literature
absolutely provides meaning to life. Coletta Kandemiri
In the attempt to define the term ‘literature’, one can distinguish between two general directions: a broad and a
narrow definition. The broad definition incorporates everything that has been written down in some form or
another, i.e., all the written manifestations of culture (hence, there are terms such as ‘research literature’, ‘the
literature on civil rights’, etc.).
Needless to say that such a broad definition is problematic as it does not really facilitate communication about the
topic. Furthermore, this concept neglects the fact that in many cultures in the past and for a number of indigenous
peoples today, literature has not been captured in written media but has been passed down in a long oral tradition
of storytelling, myths, ritual speeches, etc.
Attempts to come up with a narrow definition have, however, led to such a diversity of approaches that one can
hardly talk about ‘the’ narrow definition. Nevertheless, it is possible to sift out some of the criteria scholars have
applied in order to demarcate ‘literary texts’ from ‘non-literary texts’.
What is LITERATURE?
It is an enduring expression of significant human experience in words well-chosen and arranged.
It comes from the Latin word “litera” which means an acquaintance with letters.
Literature can be defined as everything in print. It is a body of literary productions, either oral, written, or visual,
containing imaginative language that realistically portrays thoughts, emotions, and experience of the human
condition. Some loosely interpret literature as a faithful reproduction of man’s manifold experiences blended into
one harmonious expression.
Appendix 4
Because literature deals with ideas, thoughts, and emotions of man, literature can be said to be the story of man.
Man’s loves, grief, thoughts, dreams, and aspirations coached in the beautiful language is literature. Literature is a
product of a particular culture that concretizes man’s array of values, emotions, actions, and ideas.
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It indicates that the language of literature has originality, quality, creativity, and pleasure.
Utile – to instruct
4Rs of Literature
Recreation – Literature is a means of reassembling reality. We want to see what we cannot see in reality.
Recognition – Literature helps us recognize the people and their contributions.
Redemption – Literature is a means of modification of behavior.
Revelation – Literature is a means of recording history. It reveals the past, the present, and the future.
All the above definitions describe literature from different perspectives. Still, there are certain things that are
common to them. They all recognize the fact that:
i. Literature is imaginative
ii. Literature expresses thoughts and feelings
iii. Literature deals with life experiences
iv. Literature uses words in a powerful, effective, and yet captivating manner
vi. Literature promotes recreation and revelation of hidden facts.