Creative Writing in the

Primary ESL Classroom

(TSLB3563)
Week 1
08 – 12 January 2024
Acknowledgement : 2019 Teaching Team
What’s creative writing to you?
• Having the ability to put your thoughts
down on paper is the beginning to
writing.
• All writing involves creativity since it is
selective and is written from the writer’s
perspective.
• Each individual is unique, so is their creative
process and so will be their creative writing
style.

“Creative writing is any writing that

is original and self-expressive.”
 A form of writing that expresses
writer’s feelings, emotions,
experiences, ideas, or thoughts
obtained at a conscious or
Creative subconscious level. It is more
driven by the writer’s needs to
Writing “express”, and is generally
articulated in the most unique,
inventive, and poetic way.
http://www.writeawriting.com/creative/definition-creative-writing/
 Creative writing is
considered to be any
writing, fiction, poetry, or

Creative non-fiction, that

outside the bounds of
goes

normal professional,
Writing journalistic, academic, and
technical forms of literature.
http://www.writeawriting.com/creative/definition-creative-writing/
 • Is creative writing different from other
kinds of writing?
• Informative writing (e.g. expositions
and instructions) conveys information.

Creative
• The overall intent of creative writing
is not to inform.
• Creative writing stirs the emotions; It
elicits an emotional response.

Writing • Informative writing is primarily

about imparting knowledge;
Creative writing is primarily about
creating emotional effect and
significance.
 What makes a work more creative
than informative is its emphasis.
• A storyteller’s narrative is designed to
express the storyteller’s feelings about

Creative some aspect of life.

• A poet uses events, images and people to
deliver concentrated emotion.

Writing • A dramatist or screen writer conveys and

stirs emotions through action & dialogue.
• A magazine feature writer comments on
real people and real lives to arouse our
sympathy, delight, horror or concern.
 • What matters is that the writers are

Creative
sharing experiences and emotions with the
readers and, for a while at least, leading
them towards a particular point of view.

Writing
Stimulating creativity and imagination:
“I walk making up phrases; sit,
contriving scenes; am in short in the
‘creative thick of the greatest rapture known to
achievements me.”
depend upon (Woolf, 1953, p.115)
single-minded
immersion’
 Features of creative writing genres

Prose fiction: short Prose non-fiction: Poetry: rhymes,

acrostic, alphabet,
stories, fables, personal essays, diamante, listing,
fairy tales advertisements, contemporary,
blogs shape poems
 Exploring creative writing
genres
• Prose has complete sentences organized into paragraphs. Prose focuses
on characters and plot while poetry focusing on sounds.

• Prose is further categorized into non-fiction which may be creative and tell
a story, like an autobiography, biography, memoirs, personal essays and
diaries.
 A literary work that is wholly or partly
imagined or theoretical.
EXAMPLE:
“The woods are lovely, dark and deep. But I have
promises to keep, And miles to go before I

Prose
sleep, And miles to go before I sleep.”
Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening
By Robert Frost

fiction
“The woods look lovely against the setting
darkness and as I gaze into the mysterious depths
of the forest, I feel like lingering here longer.
However, I have pending appointments to keep,
and much distance to cover before I settle in for
the night, or else I will be late for all of them.”
 • Fiction work is not real and therefore,
authors can use complex figurative
language to touch readers’ imaginations.
• Unlike poetry, it is more structured and

Prose
follows proper grammatical pattern and
correct mechanics.
• A fictional work may incorporate fantastical

fiction
and imaginary ideas from everyday life.
• Popular examples of literary fiction
include, James Joyce’s novel A Portrait of an
Artist as a Young Man, Charles Dickens’ A Tale
of Two Cities, Jane Austen’s Pride and
Prejudice, and Harper Lee’s To Kill a
Mockingbird.
 • Fictional does not mean false.
• Even when writing fiction, reality is the
proper basis of an eminent possibility
of truth.

Prose • “ Fiction is the art that calls for the strictest

attention to the real – whether the writer
is writing a naturalistic story or a fantasy.”

fiction
Flannery O’Connor (Creative Writing p.527)
• It takes our reality, or parts of it, and
shows it to us in new ways.
• It makes the familiar unfamiliar, and takes
us into parts of reality, making us take the
time to see its complexity, beauty and pain.
 Elements of prose:
• Character creation & representation of
fictional persons or entities (protagonists,
antagonists, anti hero, dynamic, static, flat,

Prose
round)
• Setting (place, time, atmosphere, mood,
forward, backwards, flashback,
projections, circular, chronological)

fiction • Point of view - perspective of the controlling

narrative voice (1st person, 2nd person, 3rd
person, objective and subjective,
omniscient, limited omniscient)
 • Imagery – specific details used to describe
characters, situations, things, ideas or
events (visual, auditory, olfactory, tactile,

Prose
gustatory, extrasensory)

• Plot – series of events or happenings

that organize a text (exposition, rising

fiction action, climax, falling action, resolution)

• Theme – ideas presented in the story

(controlling ideas, related idea, separate
issues)
 • Short
Prose stories
• Fables
fiction • Fairy tales
 • A short story is a short work of fiction.
Fiction is prose writing about
imagined events and characters.
• Some short stories can be quite long. If

Short
a short story is fifty to one hundred
pages, we call it a novella.
EXAMPLES:
• Fables (The lion and the mouse)

stories • Animal stories (The tortoise and

the hare)
• Moral Stories (The boy who cried wolf)
• Classics ("The Necklace" by Guy
De Maupassant )
 • Short story is a fully developed
story that is shorter than a novel
and longer than a fable. It typically
takes just a single sitting for

Short
reading.
• Short Story focuses on the
incidents bigger or smaller and

stories
evokes strong feelings from its
readers. A short story often has a
few characters in the plot.
 Five (5) Major Elements of a Short
Story
• Although there are several

elements and it could depend on

Short
the writer what to include or what
not to include, these five are
fundamental elements of a short
story.

stories 1. Character

2. Setting

3. Theme

4. Plot

5. Conflict
 • A fable is a story that features
animals, plants or forces of nature
which are anthropomorphised (given
human qualities).

• A fable always ends with a ‘moral’.

Fable This is the lesson that is intended to

be learnt through reading the story.
• The moral of a fable—an overarching
rule to live by that transcends the
specifics of the story—is usually
stated at the end.
 Fables are defined by four central essential
elements.
1. Symbolism. Characters in fables are stand-ins for
humans, and their misadventures are meant to
symbolize human behavior.
2. Anthropomorphization. In fables, animals and even
inanimate objects (like the wind, or the sun) are the

Fable
main characters of the story and are given human
qualities. Some animals have specific traits associated
with them. For example, an owl is wise, a fox is
cunning, and a lion is brave.
3. Lessons. Every fable has a moral lesson at the end
that arises from the story. For example: “Slow and
steady wins the race.”
4. Humor. Fables often have a humorous tone when
showing the foolishness of human nature.
 • Fairy tales are short stories often
intended for children, and include
magical creatures, people, and
places.

Fairy • Fairy tales include a beginning,

middle, and end, protagonists and
antagonists, some type of conflict and

Tales
resolution.
• However, fairy tales have magical
elements such as talking animals or
objects and an enchanted setting
such as a kingdom far away or a
forest.
 • Fairy tales often start with the phrase,
“Once upon a time”, and have happy
endings.
• The good characters always triumph
over the evil characters, there are

Fairy lessons taught, and there is always the

promise of a happily ever after.
• Early fairy tales were dark and
foreboding, with plots not suitable for a

Tales young audience. As written versions

evolved, they included happier endings.
• In the original Hansel and Gretel, for
instance, both the mother and father
intentionally left the children to die in the
woods.
 • A literary work that
Prose is mainly based on
facts, though it may
contain fictional
non-fiction elements in certain
cases.
Prose non- • Personal essay
• Advertisement
fiction • Blog
 • A piece of nonfiction writing that
shares an interesting,
thought-provoking, entertaining,
and/or humorous story for readers that
is drawn from the writer's personal

Personal experiences (even if it's second-hand

information).
• Also called a narrative essay, the

essay personal essay is different from the

other essays, because it shares a story.
• The story in a personal essay should be
nonfiction. That is, your personal essay
should be true. Otherwise, it would be a
fictional short story.
 • Personal essays usually have a
conversational tone that creates a
connection with the reader.

Personal
• This type of essay can be inspiring and
uplifting, or it can serve as a warning to
others to avoid the author’s mistakes.

essay • The essay often describes a significant

event from a first-person perspective -
uses the pronouns “I,” “me,” “we,” and
“us,” in order to tell a story from the
narrator’s perspective.
 • A public notice or
announcement online, or
in a newspaper, on
television, or on a poster
about something such as
Advertisement a product, event, idea,
service, or job.
• Its purpose is to
advertise and to draw
attention using a mass
 • A blog is a personal online diary or journal
which allows writers to share their
thoughts and ideas.

Blog
• Blogging is the act of posting content on a
blog or posting comments on someone
else's blog.

• Blog writing means writing a content to

be published on a blog. Through blog
writing, bloggers get the opportunity of
reaching hundreds and thousands of
people.
 • A literary work in which the expression of
feelings and ideas is given intensity by the
use of distinctive style and rhythm.
• Words are strung together to form sounds,
images & ideas that might be too complex

Poetry
or abstract to describe directly.
Example:
“The woods are lovely, dark and deep.
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I
sleep.”
Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening by
Robert Frost.
 • A poem is comprised of a particular
rhythmic and metrical pattern.
• It is either in metrical pattern or in free style.

Poetry
I think that I shall never
see a poem lovely as a
tree…
poems are made by fools like me,
but only God can make a tree.
(Joyce Kilmer, Trees)
 • Acrostic poem
• Alphabet poem
Poetry • Diamante poem
• Listing poem
• Shape poem
 • Repetition of similar sounding words,
occurring at the end of lines in poems
or songs.
• It gives poetry a typical symmetry
that differentiates poetry from prose.

Rhymes • It makes recital of poetry a pleasurable

experience for the readers, as the
repetitive patterns render musicality and
rhythm to it.
• For the specific purpose of giving a
pleasing effect and enjoyable experience
with the poem, which makes its recital an
enjoyable experience.
 Various Types of Rhyme

• Perfect Rhyme - two words rhyme in such a

way that their final stressed vowel, and all
subsequent sounds, are identical (sight &
light, right & might, rose & dose)

Rhymes • Syllabic Rhyme– words having a similar

sounding last syllable, but without a stressed
vowel (bottle and fiddle, cleaver and silver,
patter and pitter)
• Imperfect Rhyme – a rhyme between a
stressed and an unstressed syllable (Wing &
caring, sit & perfect, reflect & subject)
 • Assonance - words having the same
vowel sound (kill & bill, wall & hall,
shake)

Rhymes • Consonance - having the same

consonant sound (rabbit & robber, ship
& sheep)
• Alliteration - matching initial
consonant sounds (sea & seal, ship &
shin)
 • All nursery rhymes contain rhyming words
to facilitate learning for children, as they
enjoy reading them, & the presence of
repetitive patterns enables them to
memorize effortlessly.

Rhymes Baa baa black sheep, have you any wool?

Yes sir, yes sir, three bags full!
One for the master, one for the dame,
And one for the little boy who lives down the lane.

Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall, Humpty

Dumpty had a great fall.
All the King’s horses, And all the King’s men
Couldn’t put Humpty together again!”
 “I was in class one day and I got bored and was
really hungry, so I decided to write a poem about
what I was craving at the time!!”
Shelby Greer(May, 2014)
The Life Of A Cupcake
They put me in the oven to bake.

Rhymes
Me, a deprived and miserable cake.
Feeling the heat, I started to bubble.
Watching the others, I knew I was in trouble.
They opened the door and I started my life.
Frosting me with a silver knife,
Decorating me with candy jewels.
The rest of my batch looked like fools.
Lifting me up, she took off my wrapper.
Feeling the breeze, I wanted to slap her.
Opening her mouth with shiny teeth
inside, This was the day this cupcake died.
 • An acrostic poem" is a poem in
which the first letter of each line
— read vertically — spells out a

Acrostic
word or a message.
• The word “acrostic“ comes from
the Greek words “akros"

Poem (outermost) and “stichos" (line of

verse).

• Usually, the word or message

spelled out by the first letters of
each line is the overall subject of
the acrostic poem.
 • Alphabet poems are also known as
Abecedarian and ABC poems and
are related to the Acrostic.

Alphabet • In this poem, the first letter of

each line begins with the letter A

Poem and follows sequentially through

the alphabet to Z.

• Each line focuses on the subject

of the poem and builds to create a
specific story or mood.
 • A diamante – pronounced
dee-uh-MAHN-tay – is an unrhymed
seven-line poem.

Diamante • The beginning and ending lines are the

shortest, while the lines in the middle are
longer, giving diamante poems a diamond

Poem shape.

• “Diamante” is the Italian word for

diamond, so this poetic form is named for
this diamond shape.
 • There are two different types of
diamantes; synonym diamantes and

Diamante antonym diamantes.

• In a synonym diamante, the nouns at the
beginning and end are two words that

Poem mean basically the same thing.

• In an antonym diamante, the two nouns

are opposites.
 The Rules of a Diamante
Diamantes are seven lines long.
The first and last lines have just one word.
The second and sixth lines have two words.

Diamante
The third and fifth lines have three words.
And the fourth line has four words.
1. Lines 1, 4, and 7 have nouns.
Lines 2 and 6 have adjectives.

Poem
Lines 3 and 5 have verbs.
Noun
Adjective, Adjective
Verb, Verb, Verb
Noun, Noun, Noun, Noun
Verb, Verb, Verb
Adjective, Adjective
Noun
 • Did you know a list can be poetic? A list poem
features an inventory of people, places,
things, or ideas organized in a special way.

Listing • A list poem is a deliberately organized poem

containing a list of images or adjectives that
build up to describe the poem’s subject

Poem matter through an inventory of things.

• Often the title says what the list is about.

• It does not necessarily need to include
rhythm or rhyme, but each word should be
carefully chosen and memorable.
 • A shape poem is written in the physical shape
of an object that is related to the subject of
the poem.

Shape • An arrangement of words on a page into

shapes or patterns that reveal an image, such
as in a calligram.

Poem • Readers
its
experience a shape poem via

words, typography, and the visual

• representation
In this type of ofvisual
the poem’s
poetry,subject.
the meaning of
the
poem is enhanced by the shape of the
poem itself, rather than the actual words
used.
• The poem is on a
rainbow therefore it is
written in the shape of a
rainbow.
 • Contemporary poetry is considered poetry
written within our lifetime, and includes
poems written approximately from the mid-
20th century to the present day.

Contemporary • As compared to traditional poetry, it is more

strict in its form. The sonnet, ode, blank verse,

Poem ballad, dramatic monologue each have formal

elements that poets follow.
• Contemporary poetry is most often written
in
free verse (unrhymed lines). The lines
follow the natural rhythms of the language
and not the strict five stresses per line in
iambic pentameter.
 • Written in language that is accessible to
the common reader.

• Suggests ideas rather than overtly

Contemporary stating ideas.

Poem • Brief in comparison to traditional poetry.

• Grounded in the image.

• Invites the reader to complete statements,
offer conclusions, and extract meaning.
• Below is a contemporary poem that is brief, unrhymed, suggestive, grounded
in imagery, and written in common, accessible language:
 TASK 1
- In groups of 3, analyse the similarities and differences
of prose (fiction) and prose (non-fiction) using double
bubble map.

- Draw the bubble map and share it in class.

Tutorial
Task
 In groups of 4, create a poem for the categories below.
- Acrostic poem
- Alphabet poem

Tutorial
- Diamante poem
- Listing poem
- Shape poem

Task
 • Anderson, L. (2013). Creative Writing: A Workbook
with Readings. Routledge.
• Flower, L & Hayes, J. R. (1981). A Cognitive
Process Theory of Writing. College Composition
and Communication, 32 (4), 365-387. Retrieved
from http://www.jstor.org/stable/356600

Works
• https://piclits.com/traditional-contemporary-poetry/?d
oing_wp_cron=1691855819.7768139839172363281250
• https://k12.thoughtfullearning.com/minilesson/writing-
l ist-poem

cited
• https://www.yourdictionary.com/articles/examples-
acr ostic-poems
• https://wonderopolis.org/wonder/what-is-an-acrostic-
p oem
• https://www.writersdigest.com/write-better-
nonfiction/ what-is-a-personal-essay-in-writing
• https://www.masterclass.com/articles/shape-poem-
exp lained