TEXTUAL METAFUNCTIONS OF AWARD-WINNING SHORT STORIES: DEVELOPING A THEME-BASED FRAMEWORK FOR TEACHING WRITING

This study is to analyze the first paragraphs of three Don Carlos Palanca award-winning short stories to develop a theme-based framework for teaching writing. The first paragraphs were chosen because they can establish the information flow. The researcher perceived this as an advantage, especially in teaching novice writers to help them construct cohesive paragraphs. The study is limited only to the selected Filipino writers who received the first prize in the Don Carlos Palanca Memorial Awards for Literature. The following works were selected with their corresponding authors and year: “Phallic Symbols” by Abola, Alexis A.L., 2015; “Zoetrope” by Cornelio, Richard C., 2016; and, “Disguise” by Bengan, John., 2017. The selected winning pieces belong to the short stories category. The researcher utilized short stories instead of other literary genres because short stories are given to the students to integrate the lessons into the English subject. The researcher used content analysis to focus on the interpretation and understanding of the three award-winning short stories by analyzing the thematic selection and thematic progression. This design is appropriate for use in this study because it extracted meaningful information from the texts. Based on the analysis of the thematic selection and thematic progression of the first paragraphs of Don Carlos Palanca's first-prize award in literature pieces, it can be concluded that cohesive texts can create communicative outcomes. It can reflect the message the writer wants to imply. It was concluded that it can help students achieve cohesion in writing when integrated into writing classes.