Teaching Philippine Literature and Illness: Finding Cure in Humanities

• Main Author: Sarce, John Paolo
• Format: text
• Published: Archīum Ateneo 2021
• Subjects: Philippine Literature; Teaching Literature; Health Literature; Illness Literature; Medical Humanities; Education; English Language and Literature
• Online Access: https://archium.ateneo.edu/english-faculty-pubs/143; https://archium.ateneo.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1131&context=english-faculty-pubs
• Institution: Ateneo De Manila University

Health and illness as themes are uncommonly being touched in literature classrooms. Other than the lack of interdisciplinary studies or specialists in this field in the Philippines; often teachers are also confronted with tons of materials that they are either overwhelmed to teach or find it difficult to deliver on their classes. This is the goal of this paper; help teachers gain confidence and basic knowledge of teaching literature that discusses health and illness especially at this time of history. Helping both teachers and students to understand and appreciate literature as a space for developing empathy while also honing their communicative and critical thinking skills. This paper will execute this goal by providing teachers in high school a guide in teaching literature that tackles health and illness using Philippine literature. I will translate theories and concepts from other studies into easy and clear language that teachers and students will find accessible to learn and use. And to organize this article; I will divide this into three parts the first is backgrounding and developing the framework in teaching literature about health and illness. Second; the application of the framework developed using two Philippine literature texts. And lastly; this paper will demonstrate how to teach Philippine literature that tackles health and illness using an online learning management system like Canvas or Google Classroom.