Creative Nonfiction: Themes and Techniques

Module Overview

• This module focuses on creative nonfiction, exploring its themes and techniques.
• It aims to enhance the understanding and appreciation of English in varied forms.
• The module provides learning competencies related to creative nonfiction.

Republic Act 8293

• Section 176 states that the Government of the Philippines does not have copyright over its works.
• Prior approval is needed from the relevant agency to use government work for profit.
• The agency may require payment of royalties as a condition.

Module Components

• Pretest assesses prior knowledge of the lesson.
• What I Need to Know lists the essential skills and competencies to be learned.
• What’s In offers a preparatory activity for motivation or review.
• What’s New presents the lesson through stories, songs, poems, problems, activities, or situations.
• What I Can Do provides activities to apply learned knowledge to real-life situations.
• What I Have Learned summarizes the key takeaways of the lesson.
• What’s More contains activities to further assess and enhance appreciation and understanding.
• Post Test evaluates the mastery of the learning competency.
• Answer Key contains answers to activities, excluding the posttest.
• References lists the sources used to develop the module.

Creative Nonfiction

• Creative nonfiction combines literary art (fiction, poetry) with research nonfiction (literary reportage).
• Creative nonfiction employs literary devices like setting & character development.
• It includes the real or facts.
• The goal, unlike standard nonfiction writing, to be more creative.

Module 1: Themes and Techniques in Creative Nonfiction

• The one lesson aims to teach the origin and nature of creative nonfiction.
• It includes different types and forms of creative nonfiction.
• Analyzing themes and techniques in texts is a key skill to be learned.

Day 1: Pretest

• The pretest contains questions on theme and biographical narratives.
• Other subjects include autobiographical narratives and creative nonfiction forms.
• Special types of creative nonfiction and emerging types are covered.

Day 2: Origin of Creative Nonfiction

• Lee Gutkind is credited with coining the term "creative nonfiction".
• He defines this genre as “true stories well told”.
• Literary nonfiction is rooted in ancient poetry, historical accounts, and religious texts.
• People have used stories to keep a record of human experience since language began.

Creative Nonfiction Defined

• The creative nonfiction (CNF) genre is story-focused, having a plot like fiction.
• It is based on truth, retelling life experiences accurately.
• The length can vary from autobiography to a 500-word blog post.
• CNF borrows voice aspects from poetry, where poets focus on truth and realities.
• Richard Terrill compares voice to poetry, using "personal candor" to draw in the reader.
• CNF closely relates to fiction and demands beautiful prose, realistic characters, and musical sentences.

Types and Forms of Creative Nonfiction

• Biographical Narratives chronicle a person's life and experiences.
• Biography is a narrative of a person's life written by another.
• Profile concentrates on a single aspect of a featured person. -Character Sketch is shorter than a profile, like a cameo or miniature life story.
• Interview Story takes the form of a newspaper or magazine article.
• Autobiographical Narratives are accounts of one's own life.
• Autobiography is the biography of oneself, narrated by oneself.
• Memoir deals with collections of events one has witnessed or been a part of.
• Diary is a daily record of specific events in the author's life.
• Journal is more intimate and confidential than a diary, holding innermost thoughts and feelings.
• Literary Reportage presents verifiable, well-researched data, in style of a film or TV documentary.
• Descriptive Essay aims to represent the appearance of something; it uses sensory details to portray a person, place or thing.
• Reflective Essay analyzes a past event's significance through serious thought from the present vantage point.
• Special Types of Writing
  • Travel Writing describes the narrator's experiences in local or foreign places.
  • Food Writing focuses on gustatory delights or disasters and shares related insights or stories.
  • Natural Writing highlights the beauty and majesty of the natural world and is an offshoot of travel writing.
• Emerging Forms of Creative Nonfiction
  • Testimonio is a published oral or written firsthand account of human rights violations.
  • Blog is an online diary with texts, images, memes, and external links.
  • Facebook Status Report is an internet platform for self-expression for the millennial generation and beyond.

Analyzing Themes

• A theme is central idea and narrative of a story, which answers the question "What is your story about?"
• Creative nonfiction teaches moral lessons and makes readers aware of the human condition using factual stories.
• Writers express timeless and universal themes.
• Themes can be understood regardless of age, gender, geography, or culture.
• Universal themes expand the reader's knowledge of being human.

Literary Techniques

• These include figurative language, techniques, that enhance meaning in written texts.
• Authors skillfully craft themes using literary tools.
• Embedding theme or meaning into elements, makes up the final literary piece.
• Common tools:
  • Character development
  • Setting
  • Mood
  • Plot
  • Point of view
  • Figurative language
  • Allegory
  • Symbolism
  • Irony
  • Alliteration
  • Metaphor
  • Simile
  • Onomatopoeia
  • Personification
  • Rhyme
  • Repetition

Applying Knowledge

• Literary analysis looks is the examination of literary tools and how they construct themes.
• Through critical thinking, the reader pushes below surface details in search of literature's deeper meaning.