Reading Material 1

The Teen Who Won a Nobel Prize

When 15-year-old Malala Yousafzai stepped onto her school bus on October 9,
2012, she had no idea that her life would change forever. As the bus rolled through her
hometown of Swat Valley, Pakistan, she sang songs with her friends.

Then, two men approached the bus. They were members of the Taliban—an
extremist group that began taking over the valley in 2008. The men boarded the bus,
asked who Malala was, and then shot her in the face.

From a very young age, Malala had been well known in the region as a fighter
for girls' education. She had the support of her father Ziauddin, who rebelled against
the Taliban's belief that girls should be kept out of school, and had opened a girls'
school in the valley. By age 11, Malala began writing—anonymously—a blog that told
the truth about life under Taliban oppression. She wrote fiercely about how the militant
group was forcing girls out of school. When Malala was revealed as the author of the
blog, the Taliban targeted her.

After Malala was shot and critically wounded, her family moved to Birmingham,
England, so she could recover in safety. By March 2013, she was well enough to start
attending school in England. The attack had only made Malala's conviction fiercer. She
began to speak publicly about what had happened to her.

On her sixteenth birthday in 2013, Malala gave a speech at the United Nations
focusing on education and women's rights. Calling on world leaders to act, she
reminded people that if half the world is uneducated, everyone loses. “The extremists
were, and they are, afraid of books and pens. The power of education frightens them…
The power of the voice of women frightens them... Let us pick up our books and pens.
They are our most powerful weapons. One child, one teacher, one pen and one book
can change the world.”

Malala has tirelessly continued her work ever since. In 2013, she and her father
created the Malala Fund, which works to ensure that girls everywhere have access to
free, quality education. In 2014, at just 17 years old, Malala became the youngest
person to receive the Nobel Peace Prize. In 2015, she opened a school for Syrian
refugee girls in Lebanon.

Two years later, she began studying philosophy, politics, and economics at
Oxford University. In June of 2020, Malala graduated from Oxford, and gave a
touching virtual commencement address to her fellow graduates. She commiserated
about graduating during the COVID-19 pandemic, and reminded her classmates to
fight for girls in developing countries who won't have the privilege of returning to
school. Malala consistently reminds us that, as she said in her speech to the U.N., “We
cannot succeed when half of us are held back.”

Source: https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/peace/2014/yousafzai/facts/
Reading Material 2

Desiderata
Max Ehrmann (1927)

Go placidly amid the noise and haste,

and remember what peace there may be in silence.
As far as possible, without surrender, be on good terms with all
persons. Speak your truth quietly and clearly; and listen to others,
even to the dull and ignorant; they too have their story.

Avoid loud and aggressive persons, they are vexations to the spirit.
If you compare yourself with others, you may become vain and
bitter, for always there will be greater and lesser persons than
yourself.
Enjoy your achievements as well as your plans.

Keep interested in your own career, however

humble; it is a real possession in the changing
fortunes of time.
Exercise caution in your business affairs, for the world is full of
trickery. But let this not blind you to what virtue there is;
many persons strive for high
ideals, and everywhere life is full
of heroism.

Be yourself. Especially do not feign affection. Neither be cynical about

love; for in the face of all aridity and disenchantment it is as perennial
as the grass.
Take kindly the counsel of the years, gracefully surrendering the things of
youth. Nurture strength of spirit to shield you in sudden misfortune.
But do not distress yourself with dark
imaginings. Many fears are born of fatigue
and loneliness.

Beyond a wholesome discipline, be gentle with yourself.

You are a child of the universe no less than the trees and the
stars; you have a right to be here. And whether or not it is
clear to you, no doubt the universe is unfolding as it should.

Therefore be at peace with God, whatever you conceive Him to be.

And whatever your labors and aspirations, in the noisy confusion of
life, keep peace with your soul. With all its sham, drudgery and
broken dreams, it is still a beautiful world. Be cheerful. Strive to be
happy.

Source: https://archive.lib.msu.edu/tic/holen/article/2008nov30.pdf
Reading Material 3

What Is Information Technology?

Information Technology (IT) is the application of computers and internet to store,

retrieve, transmit, and manipulate information, often in the context of a business or
other enterprise. IT is considered a subset of information and communications
technology (ICT) and has evolved according to the needs.

It is worthwhile noting that the term IT is commonly used as a synonym for computers
and computer networks, but it also encompasses other information distribution
technologies such as television and telephones. Several industries are associated with
information technology, including computer hardware, software, electronics,
semiconductors, internet, telecom equipment, engineering, healthcare, e-commerce,
and computer services.

Thanks to the continuous development of computers, the original computing systems

became minicomputers and later personal computers took the lead. Nowadays, mobile
phones are dethroning the personal computer and computing is evolving faster to
become disembodied more like a cloud, becoming accessible more easily whenever
needed. Information technology has transformed people and companies and has
allowed digital technology to influence society and economy alike. It has, in this sense,
shaped societies and adapted itself to people's needs.

If you want a brief history of Information Technology, here is one. Humans were the
first "computers". Then, machines were invented to carry out the computational tasks.
Now these machines have given way to new form of information technology.
Information has become disembodied accessible from anywhere through cloud
technology. Recent advances in IT is the consequence of the development in
computing systems.

Source: https://www.myenglishpages.com/english/reading_science.php?
fbclid=IwAR1dqNqcxK7XFwi88gpQkW0g4vRBXHBRa2MfZhKK7M3MoLZKrxeNzKNh
4oo
Reading Material 4

Footnote to Youth
(An Excerpt)
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 let it to its shed and fed it. He was hesitant about saying it, but he
wanted his father to know. What he had to say was of serious import as it would mark
a climacteric in his life. Dodong finally decided to tell it, at a thought came to him his
father might refuse to consider it. His father was silent hard-working farmer who
chewed areca nut, which he had learned to do from his mother, Dodong's
grandmother.

I will tell it to 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 worms emerged from the furrows and then burrowed
again deeper into the soil. A short colorless worm marched blindly to Dodong's foot
and crawled calmly over it.
Dodong go tickled and jerked his foot, flinging the worm into the air. Dodong did
not bother to look where it fell, but thought of his age, seventeen, and he said to
himself he was not young any more.

Dodong unhitched the carabao leisurely and gave 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 land the carabao began to eat. Dodong looked at it without interests.

Source: https://marananerica.files.wordpress.com/2014/07/footnote-to-youth-by-jose-
garcia-villa.pdf
Reading Material 5

Mental Health

Our mental health directly influences how we think, feel and act: it also affects our
physical health. Work, in fact, is actually one of the best things for protecting our
mental health, but it can also adversely affect it.

Good mental health and well-being is not an on-off experience. We can all have days,
weeks or months where we feel resilient, strong and optimistic, regardless of events or
situations. Often that can be mixed with or shift to a very different set of thoughts,
feelings and behaviors; or not feeling resilient and optimistic in just one or two areas of
our life. For about twenty-five per cent of us, that may shift to having a significant
impact on how we think, feel and act in many parts of our lives, including relationships,
experiences at work, sense of connection to peer groups and our personal sense of
worth, physical health and motivation. This could lead to us developing a mental health
condition such as anxiety, depression, substance misuse.

Mental health is a positive concept related to the social and emotional wellbeing of
people and communities. The concept relates to the enjoyment of life, ability to cope
with stress and sadness, the fulfilment of goals and potential, and a sense of
connection to others. Mental health is about wellness rather than illness and is not
merely the absence of a mental health condition.

Like physical health, mental health is not fixed. Mental health exists on a continuum, or
range: from positive, healthy functioning at one end through to severe symptoms of
mental health conditions at the other.

Source:

https://www.un.org/en/healthyworkforce/files/Understanding%20Mental%20Health.pdf
Reading Material 6

Conventions of Literature

Literature is what fill in the act of fiction. Fiction is about fashioning, devising, inventing,
shaping and formulating words. The reality of literature is formed from one’s
imagination. Literature can make us imagine the possibilities of seemingly impossible
things, people, places or events.

One of the words created to guide us into the world of words is genre. A French word,
genre means classification of the variety and diversity of text or writing we encounter
every day. There are many texts (varied, but they also differ from one another
(diversity). Such differences enable one to make a classification based on certain
criteria or standards that makes then assume similarity. Without such classification, we
might get confused and lose our way in a world surrounded by words. If we browse in
bookstores, we find many categories of reading materials for sale like, an Art and
Photography. Biographies and Memoirs, Business and Investing, Children’s Books,
Fiction and Literature, Sports and a lot more. Genre is like a map that helps us
navigate a world of words by helping us to find what we want to read and letting us
know what to expect from what we are reading.

There are also two genres or kinds of words, the literal and figurative. A literal word
means exactly as it says. It is factual and does not involve fashioning or fabricating.
Definition of word in the dictionary are generally literal. The dictionary defines the apple
as a round red or green edible fruit. In figurative words, apple can lose its fruity
character. The saying “An apple a day keeps the doctor away”, refers not to the fruit
itself or of sending the doctors away, but to the belief that it promotes good health.
Figurative is like a word painted to make us see something that literal language would
not make us see. In this context, you can see the interplay between the literal and the
metaphorical.

Source: https://poemanalysis.com/definition/convention/
Reading Material 7

Subject Matter of the Philippine Contemporary Arts

If the traditional artists’ art consisted of portraits, landscapes, still life and human
interest mostly as naturally as possible, the contemporary artists’ works are
expressions of freedom, experimentation and exploration of patterns, figures, objects,
and a combination of many things that are important to them.
Subject matter in contemporary art is not confine to representations of human figures
and landscapes. The favorite subjects in contemporary art are children, women, or
the environment such as Juan Alcazaren’s Flora and Fauna. It can also be a
combination of any of these.

In some artworks, the subject matter is not easily recognized. If the artwork is an
experiment on technique, the subject matter is the technique itself. In others, such as
those in conceptual art, the viewer has to engage in thinking and exploring the
meaning of the artwork.

Some artworks are intended to make a statement about an issue so the viewer is
guided by a written explanation. In Plet Bolipata’s Cat Dolls, the subject matter
combines human figure and cat head. The artist constructed a human skeleton made
of wires and covered it with textile. The cat head is made of resin. Several of these
are found in front of her house to serve as “guards”.

Source: https://www.scribd.com/presentation/444205316/336399930-Subject-Matter-
and-Style-in-Contemporary-Art#
Reading Material 8

What is Novel Coronovirus?

Coronaviruses are a category of viruses that affect therespiratory systems of

mammals. One of the meanings of the word “novel" is “new." So a novel coronavirus is
a new coronavirus, meaning it has not yet been identified by and is not familiar to
scientists and the medical community. Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is not
the same as any other coronavirus we have seen before.

The most common coronavirus that affects humans, as well of one of the
mildest, the common cold, is caused by a type of coronavirus. The flu is also a
coronavirus. Each kind of coronavirus has certain characteristics, and scientists
classify coronaviruses according to what characteristics they share. There are
four main types of coronaviruses. They are called alpha, beta, delta, and
gamma. Most coronaviruses only affect mammals, but coronaviruses that fall
into the alpha or beta category can be transmitted from mammals to humans,
which is what scientists believe happened with COVID-19.

The novel coronavirus COVID-19 first appeared in Wuhan, China at the

end of 2019. The CO stands for corona, VI stands for virus, and D stands for
disease. The 19 represents when the virus first appeared. This name follows
the best practices outlined by the World Health Organization (WHO) for how to
name new infectious disease affecting the human population.

COVID-19 is not the first coronavirus to cause a pandemic. In 2002, the

severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) virus also originated in China,
dying off the following year. The Middle East respiratory syndrome (MERS)
coronavirus originated in Saudi Arabia in 2012 and continues to infect people
today.

Source: www.EngIishWorksheetsLand.com
Reading Material 9

Keeping the Lions Away

Richard Turere walks through his family's farm just outside Nairobi National
Park in Kenya. Goats, cows, and sheep graze peacefully in the pasture. In the park
nearby, lions roam, living in peaceful coexistence with the farm. It's an extraordinary
picture.

“I love lions,” Richard told the BBC. “If my cows are protected and they're safe,
we can live with the lions without any problem.”

How do cattle manage to live safely near these huge predators? It's all due to
this young man's brilliant invention. When he was 11, he created Lion Lights, a clever
way of keeping his family's livestock safe.

Richard Turere is a member of the Maasai people of Kenya, and has been
herding his family's cattle since he was nine years old. Livestock is his family's entire
livelihood—which is why, whenever lions attacked their goats, sheep, or cattle, it was
devastating. Lions had been encroaching on many Maasai farms, breaking into
pastures and killing precious animals.
This drove some Maasai to retaliate and kill the predators. As a result, the
numbers of Kenya's already-endangered lions kept dropping. There seemed to be no
good solution to the problem . . . until Richard began working on it. After a lion killed
his family's only bull, Richard started experimenting with ways to scare off the
predators. His first two attempts—fire and then a scarecrow—were unsuccessful.

The lions were too clever to be fooled by either. But one night in 2011, when
Richard was 11, he was walking around the pasture with a flashlight and noticed that
lions stayed away. That's when he realized: these big cats were afraid of moving lights!
Then Richard—who'd taken apart and studied machines since he was very small—
began tinkering.

Despite his lack of any formal training in electrical engineering, he rigged a

system of flashing LED light bulbs on poles around the perimeter of the pasture. The
blinking lights, which he made from vehicle-indicator flashers, car batteries, and a solar
panel, tricked the lions into thinking the grounds were patrolled. That kept the lions
away. The word got out about the brilliant “lion-lights boy.”

Soon Richard was installing the Lion Lights system for neighbors. His invention
won him a scholarship to Kenya's prestigious Brookhouse International School. And
when Richard was 13, he was invited to California to speak about his invention at a
TED conference—a talk that earned him international recognition. Paula Kahumbu,
chair of the Friends of Nairobi National Park, was impressed not only by Richard's
invention but by his persistence.

Richard has already brought groundbreaking change to his country. Now, he

says, he has plenty of other ideas for inventions that he wants to bring to the rest of the
world!

Source:
https://www.readworks.org/article/Keeping-the-Lions-Away/4e585719-9459-47b1-
942b-e7db8b6bf52a#!articleTab:content/

Reading Material 10

What Can Filipinos Be Proud Of

By: Andrea Chloe Wong

What is it that Filipinos can boast about the Philippines?

Quite hard to figure especially when the country struggles with an image
problem: excessive corruption, extreme poverty, and source of cheap manual labor.
These are some of the general impressions of the world about the Philippines that,
while unpleasant, are undeniably true. However, despite the many negative comments
that quite often overshadow the positive, there are definitely so many things to be
proud of. Chief of which is actually: ourselves.

The Filipino is renowned all over the world for remarkable qualities, often
downplayed or overlooked, but which nonetheless brings pride to the country.
Our caring ways

Essentially, we Filipinos can be proud of our humanity. We are a highly-

relational people, proficient in emotionally and socially connecting with others. Our
innate humanity is very much apparent in the caring ways we interact with those close
to us including others outside our kin circle. In fact, this trait is one of the distinct assets
of millions of Filipino doctors, nurses, care givers, and nannies who work abroad.

Generally, we are known for our heartfelt concern, nurturing spirit, and caring
touch, which naturally make our workers in demand overseas. Though it may
sometimes rub us the wrong way that our country is frequently associated with
overseas labor (especially domestic help), we can always look at it in a more positive
view. We can stand proud of those Filipino workers who give exceptional and genuine
care to the rest of the world.

Hospitality even abroad

Also, our inherent humanity is also reflected in our world-famous hospitality that
truly amazes anyone who has experienced it. Foreigners who come to visit the
Philippines speak of Filipinos going out of their way to help them when lost, or the
heartwarming generosity of a Filipino family hosting a visitor in their poverty-stricken
home.

Our compassion is eminently reflected in our personal capacity to assist others

and in our collective spirit of volunteerism.

Source: https://www.scribd.com/document/248904375/Hospitality