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Republic of the Philippines

Department of Education
Region V
SCHOOLS DIVISION OF SORSOGON
CALAO NATIONAL HIGH SCHOOL
Calao, Prieto Diaz, Sorsogon

ENGLISH
QUARTER II - LEARNING ACTIVITY SHEET NO. 2

NAME OF STUDENT: ____________________________________ DATE:_____________________

GRADE & SECTION: _____________________________________

I. INTRODUCTION
Reading becomes meaningful when you recognize how ideas in a text connect to events
happening in a larger world. Relating these ideas to particular social issues allows you to
make sense of what you read, retain information better, and engage more with the text itself.
Reading texts can provide valuable insights especially on social issues. This can be done by
connecting the overall message of the text, to the lines delivered by the speaker or author or
to the situations presented in the poem/story.
In this lesson, you will relate the text content to a particular social issue. A social issue
is a problem that influences many citizens within a society. This lesson also includes the
different sound devices used in poetry like rhymes, repetition, alliteration, assonance,
consonance, and others.

II. LEARNING SKILLS FROM MELCs

▪ Make connections between texts to particular social issues, concerns or dispositions
in real life.
a. Identify the sound devices used in poetry;
b. Summarize the information in the material viewed;
c. Relate the text content to real life social issues.

III. ACTIVITIES
A. Let Us Review
Try to determine if you have background knowledge about the topic. Read the poem
and answer the questions carefully. Encircle the letter of your answer.

We plough and sow—we’re so very, very low

That we delve in the dirty clay,
Till we bless the plain—with the golden grain,
And the vale with fragrant hay.
Our place we know—we’re so very low.
‘Tis down at the landlord’s feet:
We’re not too low—the bread to grow,
But too low the bread to eat.

1. The literary element used in this poem that stresses certain sounds and create
musical effects is called ____________.
a. literary device c. rhyme
b. sound device d. rhythm
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2. The words clay and hay used at the end of 2nd and 4th lines are examples of
________________.
a. Alliteration c. Rhyme
b. Repetition d. Rhythm
3. The repetition of the sound of a vowel or diphthong in the line—“we plough and
sow—we’re very, very low” is called ___________.
a. Rhyme c. Assonance
b. Alliteration d. Consonance
4. The group of workers being portrayed in the poem are ____________.
a. Builders c. Weavers
b. Miners d. Farmers
5. The social issue that was shown in the poem is ____________.
a. violence c. racism
b. exploitation d. gender equality

B. Let Us Study
Read the poem entitled the Man with the Hoe by Edwin Markham and find out what
circumstance the persona is facing. Also, take note of the sound devices used in the
given poem.

THE MAN WITH THE HOE

By Edwin Markham

Bowed by the weight of centuries he leans

Upon his hoe and gazes on the ground,
The emptiness of ages in his face,
And on his back the burden of the world.
Who made him dead to rapture and despair,
A thing that grieves not and that never hopes,
Stolid and stunned, a brother to the ox?
Who loosened and let down this brutal jaw?
Whose was the hand that slanted back this brow?
Whose breath blew out the light within this brain?

Is this the Thing the Lord God made and gave

To have dominion over sea and land;
To trace the stars and search the heavens for power;
To feel the passion of Eternity?
Is this the Dream He dreamed who shaped the suns
And marked their ways upon the ancient deep?
Down all the stretch of Hell to its last gulf
There is no shape more terrible than this—
More tongued with censure of the world’s blind greed—
More filled with signs and portents for the soul—
More fraught with danger to the universe.

What gulfs between him and the seraphim!

Slave of the wheel of labor, what to him
Are Plato and the swing of Pleiades?
What the long reaches of the peaks of song,
The rift of dawn, the reddening of the rose?
Through this dread shape the suffering ages look;
Time’s tragedy is in that aching stoop;
Through this dread shape humanity betrayed,
Plundered, profaned and disinherited,
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 Cries protest to the Judges of the World,
A protest that is also prophecy.

O masters, lords and rulers in all lands,

is this the handiwork you give to God,
This monstrous thing distorted and soul-quenched?
How will you ever straighten up this shape;
Touch it again with immortality;
Give back the upward looking and the light;
Rebuild in it the music and the dream;
Make right the immemorial infamies,
Perfidious wrongs, immedicable woes?

O masters, lords and rulers in all lands,

How will the Future reckon with this Man?
How answer his brute question in that hour
When whirlwinds of rebellion shake the world?
How will it be with kingdoms and with kings—
With those who shaped him to the thing he is—
When this dumb Terror shall reply to God
After the silence of the centuries?

On Social Issue
A social issue is a problem that influences many citizens within the
society. It is a common problem in present day situation and one that many people
strive to solve. Social issues are the source of a conflicting opinion on the grounds of
what is perceived as morally correct or incorrect personal life or interpersonal social
life decisions.
Some of the common issues & problems drawn from news items on social
media, television, and in newspapers include poverty, violence, anti-social behavior,
discrimination, injustice, & human rights violation.

Poetry Analysis

When you read a poem, you should not only look at its content but you should
also analyze its structure and elements.

▪ BLANK VERSE is a literary device defined as un-rhyming verse written in iambic

pentameter. In prose & poetry, it has a consistent meter with 10 syllables in each line
(pentameter); where unstressed syllables are followed by stressed ones, five of which
are stressed but do not rhyme.

▪ SOUND DEVICES are special tools the poet can use to create certain effects in the
poem to convey and reinforce meaning through sound.

There are 5 five most common sound devices:

1. REPETITION – consists of repeating a word, phrase, or sentence, and is common in

both poetry and prose.

Example: But for now, Anders can still make time. Time for the shadows to lengthen
on the grass, time for the tethered dog to bark at the flying ball, time for the
boy in right field to smack his sweat-blackened mitt and softly chant.

2. ALLITERATION – is the repetition of consonant sounds at the beginning of the words.

Example: Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers.

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 3. CONSONANCE – is the repetition of consonant sounds within and at the end of the
words.
Example: Some late visitor entreating entrance at my chamber door.
- Edgar Allan Poe, from The Raven

4. ASSONANCE – is the repetition of vowel sounds within words.

Example: along the window sill, the lipstick stabs

glittered in their steel shells. – Rita Love, from Adolescence III

5. RHYME – is a repetition of similar sounding words, occurring at the end of lines in

poems or songs. Rhyming words do not only appear at the end of the lines (end rhyme)
in poems, but they may appear within the line (internal rhyme).

Example: I think I shall never see

A poem as lovely as a tree. [end rhyme]

the crows in boughs throws endless brawls [internal rhyme]

(crows-throws) (boughs-brawls)
C. Let Us Practice
I. Looking at Poetic Devices
Point out the sound devices used in phrases and sentences in the poem The Man with
the Hoe. Fill in the table with the correct answers.

PHRASE/SENTENCE SOUND DEVICE

1. Bowed by the weight of centuries he leans

2. The emptiness of ages in his face

3. Whose breath blew out the light within this brain

4. Is this the dream He dream who shaped the suns

5. Who loosened and let down this brutal jaw?
Whose was the hand that slanted back this brow?

II. Understanding the Text

Re-read the poem entitled The Man with the Hoe and answer the following questions
then encircle the letter of the correct answer.

1. What group of workers is being described in the poem The Man with the Hoe?
a. farmers c. economists
b. miners d. laborers

2. To what animal is the man with the hoe compared?

a. sheep c. bull
b. cow d. ox

3. How does the poet describe him?

a. hopeful c. exhausted
b. disaffected d. contented

4. What does the bent body of the man with the hoe signify?
a. disability c. humility
b. hard labor d. deformation

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 5. According to the poet, who is responsible for the condition or state of the man with
the hoe?
a. politician c. captain
b. landlord d. tenant

D. Let Us Remember
Markham’s “The Man with the Hoe” received national fame, and later worldwide
fame not just because of its content but also its structure. The forty-nine lines of the
poem which were divided into five stanzas consist strong poetic ideas, symbols, and
figurative language. He chose blank verse, for it provided the flexibility he needed, and
employed language using several sound devices such as alliteration, assonance,
consonance, and repetition.

E. Let Us Practice More

Seeing Social Problems

This lesson helps you to discover how a social issue is identified, defined, given
meaning and acted upon. You will now answer the following questions:

1. What particular social issue is portrayed in the poem The Man with the Hoe?
____________________________________________________________________________

2. Is it still a social problem or concern in our country nowadays? Why or why not?

_____________________________________________________________________________

_____________________________________________________________________________
3. Who are the modern man with the hoe? How does our society treat them?

_____________________________________________________________________________

F. Evaluation
Read and analyze an excerpt from a poem by Ernest Jones entitled, The Songs of the
Classes.

We’re low, we’re low—we’re very, very low, —

And yet from our fingers glide
The silken floss and the robes that glow
Round the limbs of the sons of pride;

And what we get, and what we give,

We know, and we know our share;
We’re not too low the cloth to weave,
But too low the cloth to wear.
We’re low, we’re low, we’re very, very low,
And yet when the trumpets ring,
The thrust of a poor man’s arm will go
Through the heart of the proudest king.

We’re low, we’re low—mere rabble, we know—

We’re only the rank and the file;
We’re not too low to kill the foe,
But too low to share the spoil.

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A. Match the sound devices in the left column with the lines from the poem on
the right. Choose the letter of the correct answer and write on the space
before each number.

A B
______ 1. Rhyme a. We’re low, we’re low—we’re very, very
low, —
______ 2. Alliteration
b. We’re not too low to kill the foe,
______ 3. Consonance But too low to share the spoil.
______ 4. Assonance c. And what we get, and what we give,
d. We’re low, we’re low, we’re very, very
______ 5. Repetition low,
And yet when the trumpets ring,
The thrust of a poor man’s arm will go
Through the heart of the proudest king.
e. The silken floss and the robes that
glow
Round the limbs of the sons of pride;

B. Refer to the poem then answer the questions below. Choose the letter of
your answer.

______ 6. What group of workers is being referred to in the first stanza of the poem?
a. farmers c. weavers
b. miners d. laborers
______ 7. What word or phrase in the last stanza is synonymous to soldier?
a. king c. rabble
b. foe d. rank and file
______ 8. What social problem is brought out in the poem?
a. exploitation or abuse among workers/laborers
b. slow-growing wages for middle class workers
c. struggle between the rich and the poor
d. racial discrimination and inequality
______ 9. Why did the workers emphasize the value of their labor in the last two lines
of the poem both in the 1st and 2nd stanzas?
a. Because they want to have money
b. Because they want to get revenge
c. Because they want to enjoy the reward of their work
d. Because they want to show what they can do
______ 10. What specific solution is expressed in the poem that could solve the social
issue on exploitation among lowly workers?
a. awareness campaign
b. social transformation
c. group solidarity
d. proper guidance

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