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POPULAR LITERATURE A. LITERARY TEXT - consists of textual meaning and

referential meaning
I. NATURE
B. NON-LITERARY TEXT - only consists of referral
• Literature can be defined as an expression of meaning
human feelings, thoughts, and ideas whose medium
is language, oral and written • TEXTUAL MEANING is the meaning that is
produced by the relationship of text itself
• It is not only about human ideas, thoughts, and
feelings but also about experiences of the authors • REFERENTIAL MEANING it is produced by the
relationship between internal text and external
• It can be medium for human to communicate what text (world beyond the text)
they feel, think, experience to the readers
II. APPEAL
‘LITERATURE’ BASED ON DIFFERENT POINT OF VIEWS
• Something that makes the viewers or readers
• Literature is art attracted and interested in the literary piece
• Literature is language III. SOCIAL FUNCTION
• Literature is aesthetic (FUNCTIONS OF LITERATURE)

• Literature is fictional • ENTERTAINMENT FUNCTION - Known as, “pleasure

reading”. Used to entertain its readers. It is
• Literature is expressive consumed for the sake of one’s enjoyment
• Literature is affective • SOCIAL AND POLITICAL FUNCTION - shows how
• Literature is everything in print society works around them. It helps the reader
“see” the social and political constructs around him
• It means any writing can be categorized as literature and shows the state of the people and the world
around him
LITERATURE AS ART FORM
• IDEOLOGICAL FUNCTION - shapes our way of
1. IMAGINATIVE LITERATURE
thinking based on the ideas of other people.
• highly ‘connotative’ - words that used in literary Displays a person’s ideology placed in the text
works have feeling and shades of meaning that consciously and unconsciously
words tend to evoke
• MORAL FUNCTION - may impart moral values to its
• Imaginative literature or “literature of power” - it readers. The morals contained in a literary text,
interprets human experience by presenting actual whether good or bad are absorbed by whoever
truths about particular events reads it, thus helps in shaping their personality
2. NON-IMAGINATIVE LITERATURE • LINGUISTIC FUNCTION - preserves the language of
every civilization from where it originated.
• words refer to meaning in dictionary
evidences that a certain civilization has existed by
• Non-Fictional Literature or “literature of recording the language and preserving it through
knowledge” - which presents actual facts, events, wide spans of time
experiences and ideas
• CULTURAL FUNCTION - orients us to the traditions,
TWO CATEGORIES OF LITERATURE ACCORDING TO folklore and the arts of our ethnic group’s heritage.
KLEDEN It preserves entire cultures and creates an imprint
of the people’s way of living for others to read, hear
Kleden (2004) - states that literature can be
and learn
differentiate based on the kind of meanings that exist in
a text
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• EDUCATIONAL FUNCTION - teaches us of many • Comic Books/ Strip
things about the human experience. Used to
ROMANCE
portray the facets of life that we see, and those that
we would never dream of seeing. Literature, • In the strictest academic terms, a romance is a
therefore, is a conduct for the chance to experience narrative genre in literature that involves a
and feel things where we can learn things about life mysterious, adventurous, or spiritual story line
where the focus is on a quest that involves
• HISTORICAL FUNCTION - Ancient texts, illuminated
bravery and strong values, not always a love
scripts, stone tablets etc. keeps a record of events
interest. However, modern definitions of romance
that happened in the place where they originated.
also include stories that have a relationship issue
Thus, they serve as time capsules of letters that are
as the main focus
studies by scholars and researchers of today
• In the academic sense, an example of a romance is
IMPORTANCE OF LITERATURE
a story in which the main character is a hero who
• It entertains you and provides useful occupation in must conquer various challenges as part of a
your free time quest. Each challenge could be its own story and
can be taken out of the overall story without
• It makes you a wiser and more experienced
harming the plot.
person by forcing you to judge, sympathize with,
or criticize the characters you read about TYPES OF ROMANCE

• Literature improves your command of language GOTHIC

• It teaches you about the life, cultures and • In Gothic romance, the settings are usually in
experiences of people in other parts of the world distant regions and the stories feature dark and
compelling characters. They became popular in
• It gives you information about other parts of the
the late 19th century and usually had a sense of
world which you may never be able to visit in your
transcendence, supernatural, and irrationality.
lifetime
Popular Gothic novels still read by many high
• It helps you compare your own experiences with school students today are classics such as:
the experiences of other people
• Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte
• It gives information which may be useful in other
• Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte
subjects, for example, in Geography, Science,
History, Social Studies and so on • Frankenstein by Mary Shelley

UNIVERSAL CHARACTERISTICS OF LITERATURE • The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne

1. Timelessness HISTORICAL

2. Eternity • Historical romance takes place in times long past

and appears romantic due to the adventure and
3. Universality
wildness of the time. This also provides value and
4. Permanence meaning to the lifestyle of the characters. The
following novels fit in this sub-genre:
POPULAR LITERATURE
• The Last of the Mohicans by James Fenimore
POPULAR LITERATURE GENRES: Cooper
• Romance • Rob Roy by Sir Walter Scott
• Science Fiction

• Detective Story
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CONTEMPORARY/MODERN • Its true popularity for both writers and audiences
came with the rise of technology over the past 150
• Contemporary romance focuses on a love
years, with developments such as electricity,
relationship and has a happy ending. There are
space exploration, medical advances, industrial
two ways these romance novels are written: as a
growth, and so on. As science and technology
series or category romance (the author writes a
progress, so does the genre of science fiction
succession of books that fit a theme or follow a
storyline) or as a single-title romance. Even more TYPES OF SCIENCE FICTION
so, within the sub-genre romance, and as seen in
Hard Science Fiction
many movies, there can be:
• Hard science fiction strictly follows scientific facts
• comedy-romance
and principles
• tragic-romance
• It is strongly focused on natural sciences like
• satire-romance physics, astronomy, chemistry, astrophysics, etc.
Interestingly, hard science fiction is often written
• serious romance
by real scientists, and has been known for making
• Playwrights and poets also treat romance with both accurate and inaccurate predictions of future
various tones. events

THE IMPORTANCE OF ROMANCE • For example, the recent film Gravity, the story of
an astronaut whose spacecraft is damaged while
• Romance is a natural human emotion. However, she repairs a satellite, was renowned for its
there is some criticism that many modern scientific accuracy in terms of what would actually
romantic stories make people develop unrealistic happen in space.
views about real relationships, as they expect love
to be like it is in the movies Soft Science Fiction

• Barbara Cartland was a British writer who wrote • Soft science fiction is characterized by a focus on
723 romance novels before her death in 2000. social sciences, like anthropology, sociology,
While her novels were mainly historical in context, psychology, and politics— in other words, sciences
Cartland’s simple format for love stories and involving human behavior
success opened a whole new publishing field,
• Mainly address the possible scientific
specifically with companies such as Harlequin
consequences of human behavior. For example,
Romance and Bantam. As a result, more modern
the Disney animated film Wall-E is an apocalyptic
writers began filling the niche and the romance
science fiction story about the end of life on Earth
novel evolved on different levels
as a result of man’s disregard for nature
SCIENCE FICTION
• In truth, soft and hard sci fi can be combined. Soft
• Science fiction, often called “sci-fi,” whose content sci-fi allows audiences to connect on an emotional
is imaginative, but based in science. It relies level, and hard sci-fi adds real scientific evidence
heavily on scientific facts, theories, and principles so that they can imagine the action actually
as support for its settings, characters, themes, and happening
plot-lines, which is what makes it different from
• Sci-fi has endless number of subgenres, including
fantasy
but not limited to time travel, apocalyptic,
• So, while the storylines and elements of science utopian/dystopian, alternate history, space opera,
fiction stories are imaginary, they are usually and military science fiction
possible according to science—or at least plausible
IMPORTANCE OF SCIENCE FICTION
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Many times, science fiction turns real scientific theories • A magazine that presents a serialized story in the
into full stories about what is possible and/or form of a comic strip, typically featuring the
imaginable. Many stories use hard facts and truths of adventures of a superhero
sciences to:
• A comic is bound collection of comic strips, usually
• suggest what could really happen in the future in chronological sequence, typically telling a single
story or a series of different stories
• to explore what could happen if certain events or
circumstances came to be or BENEFITS OF COMIC BOOK

• suggest consequences of technological and Reading

scientific advancements and innovation
• Comics provide narrative experiences for students
• It is a particularly fascinating and mind-bending just beginning to read and for students acquiring a
genre for audiences because of its connection to new language
reality.
• Images support the text and give students
DETECTIVE STORY significant contextual clues to word meaning

• Detective story, type of popular literature in which • As Stephen Cary, a second language learner
a crime is introduced and investigated and the specialist and author of Going Graphic: Comics at
culprit is revealed. The traditional elements of the Work in the Multilingual Classroom, says: “Comics
detective story are: provide authentic language learning opportunities
for all students…. The dramatically reduced text of
• the seemingly perfect crime;
many comics make them manageable and
• the wrongly accused suspect at whom language profitable for even beginning level
circumstantial evidence points; readers.”

• the bungling of dim-witted police; • Even after students learn to be strong readers
comics give students the opportunity to read
• the greater powers of observation and superior material which combines images with text to
mind of the detective; and express satire, symbolism, point of view, drama,
• the startling and unexpected denouement, in puns and humor in ways not possible with text
which the detective reveals how the identity of alone
the culprit was ascertained Writing
• Detective stories frequently operate on the • Many students read fluently, but find it difficult to
principle that superficially convincing evidence is write. They complain that they don’t know what
ultimately irrelevant. to write. They have ideas, but they lack the written
• Usually it is also axiomatic that the clues from language skills to create a beginning, follow a
which a logical solution to the problem can be sequence of ideas and then draw their writing to a
reached be fairly presented to the reader at logical conclusion
exactly the same time that the sleuth receives • Allowed to use words and images they will resolve
them and that the sleuth deduce the solution to problems of storytelling which they would not
the puzzle from a logical interpretation of these otherwise experience using words alone.
clues
• Comics provide a scaffolding so that students
COMIC BOOK/STRIP experience success in their writing.
COMIC BOOK • Using Comic Life students have a new publishing
medium. Comic Life documents can be printed,
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emailed to parents or posted as a website very • Lots of books are bad - They just are. Bad works of
easily literature negatively affect the works that have
lasting merit; people who have had a bad
Key benefits of using comics in education
experience reading rarely try again to enjoy it
• A great visual Representation of Knowledge
• Rise of other academic subjects - because there are
• Presents what is essential a lot more options for a scholar these days.
International Relations, Biology, Art, Poli-Sci,
• Easier to remember a visual graphic containing Philosophy, Languages, Women’s Studies, et al.
key information
• No automatic connection to a job after college -
• Engaging through thinking, creating and writing. The disciplines that have an automatic field ready-
• Perfect avenue for writing dialogue made for the graduate are few

• Incites students with low interest in writing • Inaccessibility - This debate is one I’ve touched on
before: if a work of literature is dazzlingly brilliant
• Helps organization through storytelling and but no one can understand it, is it good? However,
storyboarding when the artist writes above the common reader’s
• Using visual images convey meaning to a story ability to comprehend, readers will be alienated
or topic • Overly-academic language - Academics have
• Develops creative and higher-level thought invented complicated terminology for everything.
processes This is not necessarily something bad–terminology
often aids specificity and education; however, when
• Develops composition techniques through academic vocabulary gets out of hand (and it can),
visual-verbal connections then a piece loses its utility
• Enriches reading, writing, and thinking • Death of aesthetics - No appreciation of art. Why
does art of any kind matter? Well, what else aside
• Serves as an assessment and evaluation tool
from art slows us down? What else shows us
• Sequencing promotes understanding beauty, beauty so amazing and alarming that we
have to appreciate it? From where do we gain
CHALLENGER FACING POPULAR LITERATURE
insight into existence?
• Post-modernism - it can cause a proliferation of
texts. Literature and theory have assisted in its
decline mainly because postmodern argue that text
and meaning are inherently separate—can’t get
there from here. It’s all subjective. It doesn’t mean.
“All writing is lying.” Upon hearing these statements
made by the very people who study and produce
literature, the common reader will say, “All right, I
believe you. Think I’ll watch some TV.”

• Mass media - There is a lot more to do in our free

time than read, most of which is easier than
reading. Reading is a task that requires time and
effort (usually); you can’t pitch convenience or
speed to someone when discussing literature.
Movies are more action-packed TV entertains; video
games excite; the internet always has a myriad of
things to do. Why read?