Contextual Reading Approaches

21 Century Literature from the
st
Philippines and the World

Prepared by: Eileen Diez Uno
Contextual
Reading
Approaches
Literary Reading through a
Biographical Context
• How does looking through

the eyes of the author help
us better understand the
text?
Vocabulary Words
1. Biography – detailed account or narrative
of a person written by someone else.
2. Autobiography – narrative of a person
written by himself / herself. Example:
Bad as I Wanna Be by Dennis Rodman
3. Belief system – set of mutually
supportive beliefs that define a person’s
or society’s outlook on life or reality.
4. Confessional – intimately
autobiographical, openness and self-
revelation
5. Jilt- ending a relationship with someone
suddenly or painfully
Reasons to read literature through Biographical Context:
• Understanding the author’s life

can help you understand his or her
work thoroughly.
• Reading an author’s biography or
autobiography helps you see how
much his or her experiences shape
his or her work directly and
indirectly.
Sociocultural Context
• Why would a particular

event or an outside
situation affect a literary
piece?
Vocabulary Words
1. Literary Theories – different schools of thought and
bodies of ideas that can be used as a tool in
understanding literary context.
2. Sociocultural – relating to or involving a combination
of social and cultural factors.
3. Social Order – set of system of social structures,
institutions, norms and customs that maintain or enforce
patterns of relations and behaviour.
4. Ideology- systematic body of concepts or beliefs about
life or culture
Reasons to read literature through Sociocultural Context:
• Helps you understand the social,

economic, political and cultural
forces affecting the work you are
reading.
• It makes you examine the role of
the audience (readers) in shaping
literature.
Literary Theories
1. Marxism – literature shows class struggle and
materialism, thus, it looks into the social classes
portrayed in the work,
2. Feminism – it examines the role of women in literature.
3. Queer Theory – It is concerned with the queer or the
third gender (LGBTQIA+).
4. Historicism – Dealing with the history that influenced
the writing of literature.
5. Postcolonialism – Looks into the changes in the
attitude of the post colonies after the colonial period.
6. New Historicism – focuses not only on the history
when the literary text was written, but also how the
history happened.
Linguistic Context
• What is the importance of

understanding the way
language is used in a
particular text?
Vocabulary Words:
1. Linguistic – of or relating to
language or the study of
language.
2. Syntax – the study of how
linguistic elements form phrases,
clauses or sentences. (Subject-verb-
object)
Vocabulary Words:
Literary Approaches that study on Language
1. Structuralism – literary theory that examines text to a
larger structure.
2. Formalism (New Criticism) – school of literary theory
focused on structure , through which a text is examined
without exterior influences. It is also the use of grammar,
syntax and meter in poetry.
3. Poststructuralism – it examines the underlying
structures in a text that may have varied interpretations.
Reasons to read literature through Linguistic Context:
• Reading the text on its own, regardless of

the author’s biography and sociocultural
context may help you understand the
literary text through analysing the words,
sentences, patterns, and imagery of the text.
• Analysing the literary text’s grammar,
syntax, and phonemic pattern may help you
find the meaning of the text within its form
and help you interpret it by simply
analysing the content of the literary work.
Critical Reading
Strategies in
Literature
Modes of Analysis
(Daniel J. Kurland, 2000)
• What a text says is the

restatement.
• What a text does is the
description.
• What a text means is
the interpretation.
Three main goals of Critical
Reading
• Recognize the author’s purpose
• Understand the tone and persuasive
elements of the text
• Recognize the bias
Critical Reading
Strategies
Previewing
• Before you begin reading the

text, preview it by gathering
important information about
it.
Annotating
• It involves highlighting
or making notes of
important ideas of the
text
Contextualizing
• When you
contextualize, you
consider the historical,
cultural or biographical
context of the text.
Outlining and Summarizing
• In outlining the text, you identify the basic
structure of the text and make connections
between those ideas.
• Summarizing the text allows you to present
your understanding of the text by reviewing
and synthesizing important ideas, and then
restating them in your own words.
Analyzing
• Analyzing a text deals

with examining the
information presented to
support the author’s
argument(s).
Rereading
• Rereading requires a repeated
examination of the text to
enable you to improve your
comprehension of the text and
to identify ideas that you may
not have noticed in initial
reading.
Responding
• Responding to the text means

drawing meaning from what
you have read and presenting
it in writing or talking about
it to others.

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21 Century Literature from the

Philippines and the World

• How does looking through

• Understanding the author’s life

• Why would a particular

• Helps you understand the social,

• What is the importance of

• Reading the text on its own, regardless of

• What a text says is the

• Before you begin reading the

• Analyzing a text deals

• Responding to the text means

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