LESSON 3

ELEMENTS OF CREATIVE WRITING

WEEK 3
CONTENT STANDARDS
The learner have an understanding of poetry as a genre and how to analyze its elements and techniques produce.
PERFORMANCE STANDARDS
The learner shall be able to produce a short, well-crafted poem.
LESSON OBJECTIVES:
The learners...
1. Read closely as writers with a consciousness of craft
2. Iidentify the various elements, techniques, and literary devices in poetry
STARTER

YOUNG STAR GAZER

Read the following poem and answer the questions that follow.

Escape at Bedtime
(from A Child’s Garden of Verses)
BY ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON

The lights from the parlour and kitchen shone out

Through the blinds and the windows and bars;
And high overhead and all moving about,
There were thousands of millions of stars.
There ne’er were such thousands of leaves on a tree,
Nor of people in church or the Park,
As the crowds of the stars that looked down upon me,
And that glittered and winked in the dark.

The Dog, and the Plough, and the Hunter, and all,
And the star of the sailor, and Mars,
These shone in the sky, and the pail by the wall
Would be half full of water and stars.
They saw me at last, and they chased me with cries,
And they soon had me packed into bed;
But the glory kept shining and bright in my eyes,
And the stars going round in my head.

CLOSE READING

1. Did the author use nonstandard English or words in another language? Why do you think he did that? What is the
effect of the use of these words? _________________________________________________________________
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2. Are there any words with more than one meaning? Why do you think the author used appropriately? Why do you
think so?
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3. Read only the final words or syllables in each line. Do the words in some lines sound familiar? Point out these
words. What do you call these similar sounding words or syllables?
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 DISCUSSION

DICTION

Diction is the choice of words used by the writers. Good writing makes good use of diction. The words should
be right and accurate, appropriate to the context in which they were used, and comprehensible to the intended
audience. Otherwise, a message may be perceived differently or erroneously from the intended message.

Poetry has a unique diction such as the use of imagery, figures of speech, and rhyming words, among others.
The sense of musicality that you notice in each line of verse is called rhyme, which most poetry have. End rhyme and
perfect rhyme are in the sample poem. As the term suggests, end rhyme is the presence of the rhyming words at the
end of the line. It is a perfect rhyme if the words sound exactly the same.

Look at the following examples of word choices:

“I prize thy love more than whole mines of gold,

Or all the riches that the East doth hold.” -(Anne Bradstreet, “To My Dear and Loving Husband”)

The use of antiquated words such as “thy” instead of “your” and “doth” instead of “do” gives the poem a
formal diction. These antiquated words are considered grand, elevated, and sophisticated language.

“Because I could not stop for Death-

He kindly stopped for me.” -Emily Dickinson, “Because I Could Not Stop For Death”

The words “kindly” and “stopped” are simple vocabulary and used here in their ordinary definitions. The use
of these words effects a casual and conversational diction rather than a formal one. Thus, the work projects an
approachable and comforting tone.

How about the mention of Death? What figure of speech was used? How is Death viewed here: an ordinary
person, a fearsome one, or a supernatural being? Why do you say so?
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SYNTAX

Syntax is how the words are arranged in a sentence or line. The usual syntax is, of course, subject-verb.
However, an unusual order of words in a sentence, including repetition of words, may be used to convey different
tones, moods, themes, or emphases of the literary work.

For example:

1. “Go out I cannot, nor can I stay in,

Becalmed mid carpet, breathless, on the road,
To nowhere and the road has petered out.” -PJ Kavanagh, “Beyond Decoration”

To write the first line of verse in its ordinary order, we can say, “I cannot go out or stay in” with emphasis on
the doer of the action or the subject “I”. By reversing the word order, the author seems to emphasize the word
“cannot”. Notice the difference as you read the sentences in different word orders.

2. “Rejoice for those around you who transform into the Force. Mourn them, do not. Miss them, do not.
Attachment leads to jealousy. The shadow of greed, that is.” -Yoda, “Star Wars”
Is there a difference when you say, “Do not mourn them. Do not miss them. That is the shadow of greed.”?

3. “What light from yonder window breaks?” -William Shakespeare, “Romeo and Juliet”

Look at the expression: “What light breaks from yonder window?” word order is reversed with the verb at the
end of the sentence. Is the work more creative this way?
 continuation…

The interplay between diction and syntax makes a sentence or verse longer or shorter. Just like
diction and syntax themselves, this interplay between them affects tone, mood, theme, or emphasis
of the literary work.

“MACBETH: Is this a dagger which I see before me,

The handle toward my hand? Come, let me clutch thee.
I have thee not, and yet I see thee still.
Art thou not, fatal vision, sensible
To feeling as to sight? Or art thou but
A dagger of the mind, a false creation,
Proceeding from the heat-oppressed brain?”
-versus-

MACBETH: I have done the deed. Didst thou not hear a noise?
LADY MACBETH: I heard the owls scream and the crickets cry. Did you not speak?
MACBETH: When?
LADY MACBETH: Now.
MACBETH: As I descended?
LADY MACBETH: Ay.
-William Shakespeare, “Macbeth”

While plotting murder, Macbeth in the first part used long, flowing monologue. The use of
antiquated language is also apparent. The second example is the dialogue after Macbeth has just
committed murder. Notice the short, cut, or clipped responses or exchange between the characters.
What does this tell you about the state of mind of Macbeth before and after the murder?

GAZE AND GUESS

Read the selections below and answer the questions on diction:

“It seemed to me that a careful examination of the room and the lawn (Sherlock is talking to Watson, a
might possibly reveal some traces of this mysterious individual. You know close friend.) Are formal words and
my methods, Watson. There was not one of them which I did not apply to sentence structure used here?
the inquiry. And it ended by my discovering traces, but very different ones
from those which I had expected.”
-Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, “The Memoirs of Sherlock
Holmes”

“Ah, happy, happy boughs! That cannot shed your leaves, nor ever bid the What word or words tell us whether
spring adieu” this is formal or informal diction?
-John Keats, “Ode on a Grecian Urn”

“Well, theory says I, what’s the use you learning to do right, when it’s What word or words tell us whether
troublesome to do right and it ain’t no trouble to do wrong, and the wages this is formal or informal diction? Is
is just the same?” there unusual syntax here?
-Mark Twain, “The Adventures of Huckleberry
Finn”
The reason no man knows; let it suffice Is there unusual syntax here? How can
What we behold is censured by our eyes. this be written in the usual word order?
Where both deliberate, the love is slight:
Who ever loved, that loved not a first sight?
-Christopher Marlowe, “Who Ever Loved That Loved not at First
Sight?”

Once more the storm is howling, and half hid What words stand out? Do these words
Under this cradle-hood and coverlid evoke positive or negative feelings?
My child sleeps on. There is no obstacle What feelings are these?
But Gregory’s wood and one bare hill
Whereby the haystack- and roof-levelling wind,
Bred on the Atlantic, can be stayed;
And for an hour I have walked and prayed
Because of the great gloom that is in my mind.
-W.B. Yeats, “A Prayer for my Daughter”

THEME

Theme is the topic or central idea, which is universal in nature. It is an underlying truth. It may be
what the reader thinks the story is about or what the work says about a given subject.

Rarely is the theme conveyed directly. Most often, the reader figures out the theme by analyzing all
the elements of the work such as imagery, figures of speech, tone, mood, diction, syntax, characters, setting,
or events in the story or plot. It may be one word such as love or truth, or a universal statement such as
“Love conquers all odds.” or “The truth sets one free.”

Examine the following examples:

“First of all,” he said, “if you can learn a simple trick, Scout, you’ll get along a lot better with all
kinds of folks. You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of
view…
Until you climb into his skin and walk around in it.”
-Harper Lee’s, “To Kill a Mockingbird”
The selection talks about compassion. Indeed, one can only understand the other if and when one
puts himself into the other person’s shoes, so they say.

“I began to see what people are capable of doing. Anyone who moved through those years without
understanding that man produces evil as a bee produces honey, must have been blind or wrong in
the head.”
-William Golding, “The Lord of
Flies”
The writer believes that evil is innate in humans, even in children. This is how the writer stands on
the topic, and this is the theme developed in the whole work.

Love’s Secret
By William Blake
Never seek to tell thy love,
Love that never told can be;
For the gentle wind doth move
Silently, invisibly.

I told my love, I told my love,

I told her all my heart,
Trembling, cold, in ghastly fears.
Ah! She did depart!

Soon after she was gone from me,

A traveller came by,
Silently, invisibly:
He took her with a sigh.
 Keeping your love a secret will spare you from pain of rejection. Do you agree with the theme of the poem?

THEME TEAM

Form teams of five and figure out the theme of the following selections:

Selection Theme
“From the very beginning-from the first moment, I may
almost say-of my acquaintance with you, your manners,
impressing me with the fullest belief of your arrogance, your
conceit, and your selfish disdain of the feelings of others,
were such as to form the groundwork of disapprobation on
which succeeding events have built so immovable a dislike;
and I had not known you a month before I felt that you were
the last man in the world whom I could ever be prevailed on
to marry.”
-Jane Austen, “Pride and Prejudice”
“I wish to heaven I was married,” she said resentfully as
she attacked the yams with loathing. “I’m tired of
everlastingly being unnatural and never doing anything I
want to do. I’m tired of acting like I don’t eat more than a
bird, and walking when I want to run and saying I feel faint
after a waltz, when I could dance for two days and never
get tired.
“I’m tired of saying, “How wonderful you are!” to fool
men who haven’t got one-half the sense I’ve got, and I’m
tired of pretending I don’t know anything, so men can tell
me things and feel important while they’re doing it… I
can’t eat another bite.”
-Margaret Mitchell, “Gone With The Wind”
“They appear to take us little note of one another, as any
two people, enclosed within the same walls, could. But
whether each evermore watches and suspects the other,
evermore mistrustful of some great reservation; whether
each is evermore prepared at all points for the other, and
never to be taken unawares; what each would give to know
how much the other knows-all this is hidden, for the time,
in their own hearts.”
-Charles Dickens, “Bleak House”
“To be or not to be: that is the question:
Whether ‘tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,
Or to take arms against a sea of troubles,
And by opposing end them? To die: to sleep;
No more; and, by a sleep to say we end
The heart-ache and the thousand natural shocks
That flesh is heir to, ‘tis a consummation
Devoutly to be wish’d. To die, to sleep;
To sleep: perchance to dream: ay, there’s the rub.”
-William Shakespeare, “Hamlet”
“You may write me down in history
With your bitter, twisted lies,
You may trod me in the very dirt
But still, like dust, I’ll rise.”
-Maya Angelou, “Still I Rise”
CONSTANT CHANGE
1. Are you open for change?
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Read the selection and answer the questions that follow.

Nothing Gold Can Stay

By Robert Frost

Nature’s first green is gold,

Her hardest hue to hold.
 Her early leaf’s a flower;
But only so an hour.

Then leaf subsides to leaf.

So Eden sank to grief,
So dawn goes down to day.
Nothing gold can stay.

LET’S DO IT

1. Listen to the poem as your friend or one of your family members reads it.
2. While listening, write the words that stand out.
3. Read the poem again.
4. Why do they stand out? Are they vivid words? Are they unusual choices or ordinary words? Do they contrast
ideas?
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5. How do these words influence our perception of the narrator and of the events in the poem? Do they evoke
emotion? What particular emotion did the words evoke?
_______________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________________________________________.
6. Did the author use nonstandard English or words in another language? Why do you think he did that? What is the
effect of the use of these words? _________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________________________________.
7. Are there any words with more than one meaning? Why do you think the author used language this way?
___________________________________________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________________________________________.
8. Can you point out the imagery and figures of speech present in this work? Are they used appropriately? Why do
you think so?
___________________________________________________________________________________
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9. Read only the final words or syllables in each line. Do the words in some lines sound similar? Point out these
words. What do you call these similar sounding words or syllables?
_____________________________________________
___________________________________________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________________________________________.
10. Do the words here give us a clue as to the context or setting of the poem? How?
___________________________________________________________________________________________
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11. Based on the words you have written, what do you think is this work about?
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Learner’s Name: ________________________________________ Year & Section: _______________________

Parent/ Guardian: ______________________________________ Date: ______________________________

(Signature over Printed Name) Teacher: ___________________ Contact No.: ________________