Good Morning!

Let’s review!
Envelop vs Envelope
- to cover complete - container for a letter

- verb - noun

Diction Grammar
 Love isn’t perfect. It isn’t a fairytale or a
storybook and it doesn’t always come easy.
Love is overcoming obstacles, facing
challenges, fighting to be together, holding
and never letting go. It is a short word,
easy to spell, difficult to define, and
impossible to live without. Love is work,
but most of all, love is realizing that every
hour, every minute, every second of it was
worth it because you did it together.
- ANONYMOUS
Word of the Day
CRITIQUE
Critical Reading
as looking for
ways of
Thinking
 Critical Reading
“Critical” means to express
criticism.
Critical reading is engaging
yourself in a text or in any
material that you are reading.
 Critical Thinking
It is the ability to think clearly and rationally and the
ability to understand the relation of ideas presented.

 Observe
 Identify
 Analyze
 Interpret
 Infer
 Evaluate
 Explain
 Solve problems
 Make decisions
Ways to help you to become
a critical reader:

1. Annotate what you read

2. Outline the text
3. Summarize the text
4. Evaluate the text
1. Annonate what you read

You can underline,

circle, or highlight words,
phrases, or sentences
that contain important
details.
2. Outline the text
You need to identify the main
points of the writer and list
them down so you can also
identify the ideas that the writer
has raised to support his/her
stand.
EXAMPLE
: Thesis statement: The concept of Standard English
is problematic because there is no clear definition
of what standard is.
Point 1: The author gives a scenario in the Philippine
classrooms in which English teachers get frustrated
because of students’ grammatical errors.
Point 2: The author mentioned that research studies
are being conducted in order to improve teaching
English as a second language but failed to mention
what those specific studies are.
Point 3: The common errors that Filipino college
students commit in their writings are mentioned.
3. Summarize the text
You can also get the main
points of the text you are
reading and write the gist
in your own words. A
summary is usually one
paragraph long.
4. Evaluate the text
You question the author’s
purpose and intentions, as
well as his/her
assumptions in the claims.
 Let us practice!
For the longest time, I believed in
winning. I believed that in any
competition, someone has to lose so
that one can win. I believed in winning
since my early exposures in
competitions and quiz bees way back
in the 90s. Oh, God. When we
compete, the goal is always to win.
And why not? The winners always take it all—
the trophy, the medals, the honor. And if you go
home losing, it’s depressing, it’s painful, it’s just
one of those things we can’t really be proud of.
Of course, people would pacify your sadness by
telling you, it’s OK. You can try again next time.
We believe them. So we would join the
competition again. This time, we believed we
are better and therefore would have a greater
chance of winning. Regardless of the result,
people would always have something to say
whether we win or lose.
All our lives, we are made to believe in winning.
That, should we want to really be happy, we have
to win. They didn’t really require us to win big.
Winning is sometimes enough. Just win because
losing isn’t good. Losing means you are weak,
unprepared, disorganised. You are less when you
lose, they say.
So every now wants to win. Whatever happens,
the goal is to win. Yes, sometimes whatever it
takes.
Today, allow me to say what I discovered. In life,
there’s no winning. There’s only learning. We
can’t win in life. But we can only learn.
When we were still in pre-school, we were told to
pass to enter the primary school. We did. And
then we were told to go through another six years
so we can go to high school. We did. And then we
were told to study for another four years or more
so we can either get a job or start our own
business. For some, they were asked to take a
Master’s or Doctor’s degree and they did.
In all those years, have we won? Oh, yes. We
certainly did. We won in different levels. But we
won. We got our diplomas and marched during
the graduation rites. We made it.
But have you also noticed that this is a never-ending
game? That whatever you do, how much you believe
you are winning, you are always on to another game?
That however good and worthy you have become,
you will end up starting a brand new level again.
That every now and then, something new is about to
begin and that this life is a never-ending game?
I saw it.
It may appear that we are winning but in truth, we
are not. We are just learning. And even losers get the
same chance to learn. That explains why some losers
now become winners of tomorrow and some
winners now become losers in the future.
I’m writing this not because I don’t want people to
win and that I encourage people to lose. I simply
want to emphasise that in this life, in this game,
don’t focus on winning. Focus on learning because
that’s all there is in this life. Whatever we do, we
will have to take another game and that will
happen until our last day.
We can’t win in life. And we can’t finish the game
alive. But every day in every game, big or small, we
have the opportunity to learn. You don’t have to
win to be happy. You just have to learn. Maybe
that’s enough reason to move on—knowing that
you’ve learned and you can face another game
with the lessons in your heart.
Thank you,
God bless! 