IV. Reflection in Literature

    Philippine literature was the descriptive title of our subject. When I heard this, my first impression is that it is knowledgeable. But as what I’ve heard from the higher years, it is boring and every time it is being discussed, it makes you sleep… So, when I check my schedule, “Oh my Gosh!” it was scheduled 1:00 to 2:00 pm in the afternoon which most of us considered being a “katuruyo time” and sitting in your chair for about 3 hours is so exhausted, isn’t it?

      On the first day of class our teacher oriented us. Then the next meeting, we started our formal class and she started it with the first lesson, “what is Literature?” and as what our teacher said, literature is a written works that could be a fiction or non-fiction and the example of this is the legend, poems, novels, plays and etc.

       We first discussed the legend. Our teacher assigned us to search for a legend and present it in front of our classmates. As we discussed the legend, we learned where certain thing comes from and that it tells a story of origin. Some of the legend we discussed is the Legend of Pineapple, Legend of Malakas and Maganda and other great Filipino legend. We are also trained to speak English in front and expand our knowledge about the things in our environment. As what our teacher said, legend could be true or supernatural but as we go further I became inattentive to listen because it takes a long time before it finished.

       After the legend, we proceed to the next lesson which is the riddles and proverbs. As usual, our teacher assigned us to search for a riddles and proverbs. We had much fun with this lesson because everybody participated. We played a riddle guessing game.  The rule is that somebody is going to dictate the riddles he searched and he is also the one to choose someone to answer it. Guessing the answer of the riddles is really fun and exciting. 

      After we finished the recent topic, we go along with the next topic which is the ballad. Our teacher assigned us again to search for a Kenny Roger’s songs and relate it to our real life. In this topic, we observed the mixed emotions felt by the one who is presenting its assignment in front. There are some that are sad because of the tragedies in their lives and there are some who are happy because of the love that they felt with their families, special someone and our one and only savior Jesus Christ. In this topic, we also learned that ballad songs are expressions of one’s emotion. So, if you want to express your emotions, you can express it through songs.

     The last topic that we discussed is the epic. We learned the different epics of the different tribes in the Philippines like in Ilocano, the Biag ni Lam-ang, and the Ibalon or Hadiong in Bicol. I learned that most of the epic shows heroism of some traditional hero.

    It is so true that in literature subject, you can acquire more knowledge. And it doesn’t mean it is boring at all, it depends on how interested a person to deal with this subject.