Teaching Literature

LESSON PLANS
NARRATIVES
Natalie Eden Rañada | BSE/ 2nd Year | April 24, 2019
 Lesson: Footnote to Youth

I. Objectives
During the 30-minute period, each student will:
a. identify the elements of short story from the selection;
b. discuss the elements of short story using the story grammar, and
c. get the significance of the story through group discussion.

II. Subject Matter

a. Topic: Footnote to Youth by Jose Garcia Villa
b. Concept: Life after marriage is hard; therefore, one should see to it that he is
ready and prepared enough for the bigger responsibilities that a marriage life
demands.
c. Materials: handouts, charts, graphic organizer

III. Learning Tasks

Teacher’s Activity Students’ Activity
A. Routine
1. Prayer
Let us pray first. May I ask ___ to lead
the opening prayer? Let us pray. Almighty God… (Student’s
Thank you Prayer)
Good morning, class!
Good morning, ma’am Ranada!

(Students pick up the pieces of paper and

arrange their chairs)
 B. Motivation FACTORS TO CONSIDER BEFORE
Few years from now, you will be a MARRYING
graduate of this institution, and several years
from now, you build your own families.
If you were to get married someday,
what would be the factors that you would
want to consider first before marrying?

Marriage

C. Vocabularies
Before moving on to our topic, let us
first unlock the difficult words that are
present in the selection.
Read the following sentences and give the
meaning of the underlined words. Circle the
letter of the corresponding definition.
1. The sun was hazy during the cloudy
day.
a. Blurry
b. Clear
c. Uncertain

2. To men, numerous offspring are living

symbols of virility.
a. Emptiness
b. Nobility
c. Manliness

3. The fieldwork begrimed him.

a. Cleaned
b. Soiled
c. Darkened
4. She came home flustered about her
problem.
a. Comfortable
b. Careless
c. Worried

5. There is interminable work to be done

yet.
a. Endless
b. Little
c. Unimportant
What is the answer in item number one?
Very good! How about number two?
Nice! How about number three?
Correct! How about number four?
Very good! And last?
Well done!
E. Presentation of Material
Did you understand it?
Very good. But to better understand the story,
we shall answer this following guide questions
for our discussion. Kindly read.
The answer is letter A, blurry. The context
clue is the word cloudy.
The answer is letter C, manliness. The context
clue used is the word men.
The answer is letter B, soiled. The context clue
is the word fieldwork.
The answer is letter C, worried. The context
clue is the word problem.
The answer is letter A, endless. The context
clue that is used is yet.
Guide Questions:
1. What is the short story all about?
2. Who are the characters in the story?
3. Describe the setting of the story.
4. What point of view was used in the story?
5. What made Dodong feel that he was no
longer a boy but already a man?
6. What character is revealed by Dodong
when he was got tickled by the worm,
jerked his foot, flinging the worm into air
yet never bothered to look at where it fell?
7. How did Teang find married life?
8. When Dodong asked permission to get
married, his father felt sorry for him. So
did Dodong when Blas asked for
permission to get married. They knew that
life is hard after marriage, why then do you
think that they did not prevent their sons
from experiencing those hardships that
they’ve gone through?
 F. Discussion
Now, let us answer question number
one. What is the short story all about?
Who are the characters in the story?
Describe the setting of the story.
What point of view was used in the story?
What made Dodong feel that he was no longer
Dodong felt that he was no longer a boy
a boy but already a man?
because he had pimples on his face and his lip
already was darkened. He thought that those
were the evidence of his being a man.
What character is revealed by Dodong when
he was got tickled by the worm, jerked his
foot, flinging the worm into air yet never
bothered to look at where it fell?
How did Teang find married life?
Correct! She was unhappy with their marriage
that she even wondered how life would be if
she had married Lucio, her suitor, instead of
Dodong.
The short story is about a Dodong who entered
marriage life with Teang at the age of
eighteen, and who later felt remorseful about
his marriage life.
The characters in the short story are Dodong,
Teang, Lucio, Blas, Tona, and Dodong’s
mother and father.
The setting is in a barrio or in a rural place
where most people work in fields. There were
rice fields all around the place and carabaos,
too. There were streams too where people
bathe after the fieldwork soiled them. There
was no electrical lamps, rather people used
petroleum lamp to light their houses.
The First Person point of view is used in the
story since the narrator was able infiltrate the
thoughts of the characters.
His reaction towards it revealed that from the
very beginning Dodong's character is someone
who is self-obsessed to the point that he
doesn't bother to look at the consequences of
his actions.
Teang found her married life difficult to the
extent that she was unhappy with their
marriage. For six successive years, Dodong
and Teang kept having children. Besides that,
she spent the rest of her life with the
interminable household work – cooking,
laundering, cleaning the house and taking care
of the children. She became shapeless even at
the young age.
When Dodong asked permission to get married,
his father felt sorry for him. So did Dodong
when Blas asked for permission to get married.
They knew that life is hard after marriage, why
then do you think that they did not prevent their
sons from experiencing those hardships that
they’ve gone through?
Correct! This is particularly due to the fact that
his father never had that wisdom either. Such
wisdom can only be passed on by those people
who greatly influence our lives - which in most
cases are our parents. So when dealing with his
son Blas, Dodong could only do what he knew
like what his father did with him, and that is to
allow Blas to marry early, when he should
have discouraged him instead. The lesson then
becomes universal in the sense that it is not
only for the young ones but to parents as well
that they should have the wisdom on how to
guide their children the proper way.
Explain the line “Youth must triumph... now.
Love must triumph... now. Afterwards... it will
be life.”
Very good! This phrase refers to the cycle of
life that one must follow and go through.
G. Generalization
What is the significance of this story to you?
It is because both fathers married early, they
lacked the experience and the know-how with
regards to raising children: hence the fact that
they were unable to fulfill their responsibility
as parents in guiding their kids down a wiser
path.
This phrase depicts the cycle of life which
means one must experience being young first
before turning into an adult, and then when he
is ready enough that is the time that he may
enter into a marriage life. One must enjoy his
younger years, enjoy being in love, then he will
be ready for the so called life – to live and to
build his own home.
The story serves a warning to us, youth, as the
title itself suggests. It reminds us of the
responsibilities and realities that come with
marriage and the family life. It advises us that
life after marriage is difficult especially when
we are yet incapable of the responsibilities and
challenges that life gives. Therefore, we should
not rush into something that we will be
regretting in the end.
outlines the elements of a story.

Here is how it looks. (see Fig. 2) What you are

going to do is to supply each item. Be sure that
everybody will present.

You are given 5-7 minutes to work on it and 3

minutes for your presentation. (Each group presents)

IV. Evaluation

Directions: IDENTIFICATION. Identify the following items based upon the descriptions given.

1. The author of the selection

2.
3. The main characters
4.
5. Point of view used in the story
6. Teang’s suitor besides Dodong
7. The age of Dodong when he got married
8. The number of children Dodong and Teang have for six successive years
9. The woman whom Blas wanted to marry
10. The exact lines that explain the youth – love – life cycle

ESSAY

1. In a one half sheet of paper, discuss the values that the story Footnote to Youth gives
and its impact to you as youth. Limit your answer in 5-7 sentences.
 Figure 1.
FACTORS TO CONSIDER BEFORE MARRYING

Directions: Give at least five factors that one should consider before marrying.

Marriage

Figure 2.
STORY GRAMMAR

Directions: Analyze the short story Footnote to Youth by filling out each item.

Title

Author

Characters

Setting

Event 1 Event 2 Event 3

Conflict/problem

Lesson
 Title:
Author:

Event 1 Event 2 Event 3 Setting

Characters

Conflict/Problem

Lesson:
Footnote to Youth
by: Jose Garcia Villa
The sun was salmon and hazy in the west. Dodong thought to himself he
would tell his father about Teang when he got home, after he had unhitched the
carabao from the plow, and led it to its shed and fed it. He was hesitant about
saying it, he wanted his father to know what he had to say was of serious
importance as it would mark a climacteric in his life. Dodong finally decided to
tell it, but a thought came to him that his father might refuse to consider it.His
father was a silent hardworking farmer, who chewed areca nut, which he had
learned to do from his mother, Dodong’s grandmother

I will tell him. I will tell it to him.

The ground was broken up into many fresh wounds and fragrant with a
sweetish earthy smell. Many slender soft worm emerged from the further rows and
then burrowed again deeper into the soil. A short colorless worm marched blindly
to Dodong’s foot and crawled clammilu over it. Dodong got tickled and jerked his
foot, flinging the worm into the air.Dodong did not bother to look where into the
air, but thought of his age, seventeen, and he said to himself he was not young
anymore.
Dodong unhitched the carabao leisurely and fave it a healthy tap on the
hip. The beast turned its head to look at him with dumb faithful eyes. Dodong gave
it a slight push and the animal walked alongside him to its shed. He placed bundles
of grass before it and the carabao began to eat. Dodong looked at it without
interest.
Dodong started homeward thinking how he would break his news to his
father. He wanted to marry, Dodong did. He was seventeen, he had pimples on his
face, then down on his upper lip was dark-these meant he was no longer a boy. He
was growing into a man – he was a man. Dodong felt insolent and big at the
thought of it, although he was by nature low in stature.
Thinking himself man – grown, Dodong felt he could do anything.

He walked faster, prodded by the thought of his virility. A small angled

stone bled his foot, but he dismissed it cursorily. He lifted his leg and looked at the
hurt toe and then went on walking. In the cool sundown, he thought wild young
dreams of himself and Teang, his girl.She had a small brown face and small black
eyes and straight glossy hair. How desirable she was to him. She made him want
to touch her, to hold her. She made him dream even during the day.
Dodong tensed with desire and looked at the muscle of his arms. Dirty. This
fieldwork was healthy invigorating, but it begrimed you, smudged yo u
terribly. He turned back the way he had come, then marched obliquely to a creek.

Dodong stripped himself and laid his clothes, a gray under shirt and
red kundiman shorts, on the grass. Then he went into the water, wet his body over
and rubbed at it vigorously. He was not long in bathing, then he marched
homeward again. The bath made him feel cool.
It was dusk when he reached home. The petroleum lamp on the ceiling was
already lighted and the low unvarnished square table was set for supper. He and
his parents sat down on the floor around the table to eat. They had fried freshwater
fish, and rice, but did not partake of the fruit. The bananas were overripe and when
one held the,, they felt more fluid than solid.Dodong broke off a piece of caked
sugar, dipped it in his glass of water and ate it. He got another piece and wanted
some more, but he thought of leaving the remainder for his parent.
Dodong’s mother removed the dishes when they were through, and went
with slow careful steps and Dodong wanted to help her carry the dishes out. But he
was tired and now, feld lazy. He wished as he looked at her that he had a sister
who could help his mother in the housework. He pitied her, doing all the
housework alone.
His father remained in the room, sucking a diseased tooth. It was paining him,
again. Dodong knew, Dodong had told him often and again to let the town dentist
pull it out, but he was afraid, his father was. He did not tell that to Dodong, but
Dodong guessed it. Afterward, Dodong himself thought that if he had a decayed
tooth, he would be afraid to go to the dentist; he would not be any bolder than his
father.
Dodong said while his mother was out that he was going to marry
Teang. There it was out, what we had to say, and over which he head said it
without any effort at all and without self-consciousness. Dodong felt relived and
looked at his father expectantly. A decresent moon outside shed its feebled light
into the window, graying the still black temples of his father. His father look old
now.
“I am going to marry Teang,” Dodong said.
His father looked at him silently and stopped sucking the broken tooth, The
silenece became intense and cruel, and Dodong was uncomfortable and then
became very angry because his father kept looking at him without uttering
anything.
“I will marry Teang,” Dodong repeated. “I will marry Teang.”

His father kept gazing at him in flexible silence and Dodong fidgeted on his seat.
I asked her last night to marry me and she said… “Yes. I want your permission…
I… want… it…” There was an impatient clamor in his voice, an exacting protest
at his coldness, this indifference. Dodong looked at his father sourly. He cracked
his knuckles one by one, and the little sound it made broke dully the night
stillness.
“Must you marry, Dodong?”
Dodong resented his father’s question; his father himself had married
early. Dodong made a quick impassioned essay in his mind about selfishness, but
later, he got confused.
“You are very young, Dodong.”
“I’m seventeen.”
“That’s very young to get married at.”
“I… I want to marry… Teang’s a good girl…
“Tell your mother,” his father said.
“You tell her, Tatay.”
“Dodong, you tell your Inay.”
“You tell her.”
“All right, Dodong.”
“All right, Dodong.”
“You will let me marry Teang?”
“Son, if that is your wish… of course…” There was a strange helpless light in his
father’s eyes. Dodong did not read it. Too absorbed was he in himself.

Dodong was immensely glad he has asserted himself. He lost his resentment for
his father, for a while, he even felt sorry for him about the pain I his tooth. Then he
confined his mind dreaming of Teang and himself. Sweet young dreams…

***
Dodong stood in the sweltering noon heat, sweating profusely so that
his camiseta was damp. He was still like a tree and his thoughts were
confused. His mother had told him not to leave the house, but he had left. He
wanted to get out of it without clear reason at all. He was afraid, he felt afraid of
the house. It had seemingly caged him, to compress his thoughts with severe
tyranny. He was also afraid of Teang who was giving birth in the house; she face
screams that chilled his blood. He did not want her to scream like that. He began to
wonder madly if the process of childbirth was really painful. Some women, when
they gave birth, did not cry.
In a few moments he would be a father. “Father, father,” he whispered the word
with awe, with strangeness. He was young, he realized now contradicting himself
of nine months ago. He was very young… He felt queer, troubled, uncomfortable.
Dodong felt tired of standing. He sat down on a saw-horse with his feet close
together.He looked at his calloused toes. Then he thought, supposed he had ten
children…
The journey of thought came to a halt when he heard his mother’s voice from the
house.

Come up, Dodong. It is over.”

Suddenly, he felt terribly embarrassed as he looked at her. Somehow, he was
ashamed to his mother of his youthful paternity. It made him feel guilty, as if he
has taken something not properly his. He dropped his eyes and pretended to dust
off his kundiman shorts.
“Dodong,” his mother called again. “Dodong.”
He turned to look again and this time, he saw his father beside his mother.
“It is a boy.” His father said. He beckoned Dodong to come up.
Dodong felt more embarrassed and did not move. His parent’s eyes seemed to
pierce through him so he felt limp. He wanted to hide or even run away from them.
“Dodong, you come up. You come up,” his mother said.
Dodong did not want to come up. He’d rather stayed in the sun.
“Dodong… Dodong.”
I’ll… come up.

Dodong traced the tremulous steps on the dry parched yard. He ascended the
bamboo steps slowly. His heart pounded mercilessly in him. Within, he avoided
his parent’s eyes. He walked ahead of them so that they should not see his face. He
felt guilty and untru. He felt like crying. His eyes smarted and his chest wanted to
burst. He wanted to turn back, to go back to the yard. He wanted somebody to
punish him.
“Son,” his father said.
And his mother: “Dodong..”
How kind their voices were. They flowed into him, making him strong.
“Teanf?” Dodong said.
“She’s sleeping. But you go in…”
His father led him into the small sawali room. Dodong saw Teang, his wife, asleep
on the paper with her soft black hair around her face. He did not want her to look
that pale.
Dodong wanted to touch her, to push away that stray wisp of hair that touched her
lips.But again that feeling of embarrassment came over him, and before his parent,
he did not want to be demonstrative.
The hilot was wrapping the child Dodong heard him cry. The thin voice touched
his heart. He could not control the swelling of happiness in him.
“You give him to me. You give him to me,” Dodong said.

***
Blas was not Dodong’s only child. Many more children came. For six successive
years, a new child came along. Dodong did not want any more children. But they
came. It seemed that the coming of children could not helped. Dodong got angry
with himself sometimes.
Teang did not complain, but the bearing of children tolled on her. She was
shapeless and thin even if she was young. There was interminable work that kept
her tied up. Cooking, laundering. The house. The children. She cried sometimes,
wishing she had no married. She did not tell Dodong this, not wishing him to
dislike her. Yet, she wished she had not married.Not even Dodong whom she
loved. There had neen another suitor, Lucio older than Dodong by nine years and
that wasw why she had chosen Dodong. Young Dodong who was only
seventeen. Lucio had married another. Lucio, she wondered, would she have born
him children? Maybe not, either. That was a better lot. But she loved Dodong… in
the moonlight, tired and querulous. He wanted to ask questions and somebody to
answer him. He wanted to be wise about many thins.

One of them was why life did not fulfill all of the youth’ dreams. Why it
must be so.Why one was forsaken… after love.
Dodong could not find the answer. Maybe the question was not to be answered. It
must be so to make youth. Youth must be dreamfully sweet. Dreamfully sweet.
Dodong returned to the house, humiliated by himself. He had wanted to know little
wisdom but was denied it.
When Blas was eighteen, he came home one night, very flustered and
happy. Dodong heard Blas’ steps for he could not sleep well at night. He watched
Blass undress in the dark and lie down softly. Blas was restless on his mat and
could not sleep. Dodong called his name and asked why he did not sleep.
You better go to sleep. It is late,” Dodong said.
Life did not fulfill all of youth’s dreams. Why it must be so? Why one was
forsaken after love?

“Itay..” Blas called softly.

Dodong stirred and asked him what it was.
“I’m going to marry Tona. She accepted me tonight.
“Itay, you think its over.”
Dodong lay silent.
I loved Tona and… I want her.”
Dodong rose from his mat and told Blas to follow him. They descended to the yard
where everything was still and quiet.
The moonlight was cold and white.
“You want to marry Tona, Dodong said, although he did not want Blas to marry
yet.Blas was very young. The life that would follow marriage would be hard…
“Yes.”
“Must you marry?”
Blas’ voice was steeled with resentment. “I will mary Tona.”
“You have objection, Itay?” Blas asked acridly.
“Son… non…” But for Dodong, he do anything. Youth must triumph… now.
Afterward… It will be life.
As long ago, Youth and Love did triumph for Dodong… and then life.
Dodong looked wistfully at his young son in the moonlight. He felt extremely sad
and sorry for him.