Creative Writing

Quarter 4 – Module 6
Creative Writing Versus
Academic/Technical
Elements of
Writing Genre:
Theme and Tone

Aldous A. Angcay
Subject Teacher

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 Creative Writing
Quarter 4 – Module 5
Elements of Genre: Theme and Tone

EXPECTATIONS
This is your self-instructional learner module in Creative Writing. All the activities
provided in this lesson will help you learn and understand Elements of Genre: Theme and
Tone.

RECAP
We have learned that the process entails reading and re-reading multiple times. It's
a careful and purposeful rereading of a text. It`s an encounter in the text where readers
focus on what the author had to say, what the author`s purpose was, what the words
mean, and what the structure of the text tells us.

LESSON

Genre means a type of art, literature, or music characterized by a specific form,

content, and style.
Genres allow literary critics and students to classify compositions within the larger
canon of literature. Genre (pronounced ˈzhän-rə) is derived from the French phrase genre
meaning “kind” or “type.”
Webster's Encyclopedic Unabridged Dictionary of the English Language defines
the genre as "a category of artistic, musical, or literary composition characterized by a
particular style, form, or content.”

Elements of Genre

1. THEME
The Theme is the main idea that weaves the story together, the why, the underlying
ideas of what happens in the piece of literature, often a statement about society or
human nature.

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Types of Theme
a. The Explicit Theme is when the writer states the theme openly and clearly.
Example:
Charlotte's Web: friendship. Primary explicit themes are common in children's
literature, as the author wants to be sure the reader finds it.

b. Implicit Themes are implied themes. Opposite of Explicit: Implied - a theme that
is implied through Characters, Plot, Setting, Stylistic Choices.

Commonly Used Theme

a. Courage
It is a wonderful theme to explore in writing. Life is full of difficult moments that must
be surmounted, so why not draw inspiration from fictional and nonfictional characters
in a piece of literature? It just may be the story that inspires someone else to push
through the next challenge in life.
b. Death
Death is something everyone will face. It's packed with so much uncertainty. And, for
those left behind, it leaves lingering feelings of sadness and, sometimes, even remorse.
This can be a great theme if your goal is to tug at the heartstrings of your readers.
c. Love
Of course, love can move the world. When two characters fall in love, they'll go to any
lengths to stay together. It makes for an interesting story to see how love survives,
despite all the curveballs the main characters might face.
d. Friendship
Valued friendships can completely alter one's life. It can sustain you through moments
when you need to pull out all of your courage. It can bolster us when we're feeling down.
And it's also a wonderful prize when celebrating life's special moments.
e. Revenge
Of course, the theme in a novel doesn't always have to be a positive thing. It can be a
negative attribute that might inspire readers to take a better path in life.

2. TONE
Tone tells us the author feels about his or her subject. Words express the writer's
attitude toward his or her work, subject, and readers. Without vocal inflection to help
convey tone, the writer must choose words with great care. We often describe a writer's
tone but are not aware of how we discovered the tone. It sorts of creeps into our

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consciousness. Tone can be serious, humorous, satirical, passionate, sensitive, zealous,
indifferent, caring, caustic.

Examples of Tone
a. Catcher in the Rye (By J. D. Salinger)
Holden Caulfield, in J. D. Salinger’s Catcher in the Rye, unfolds his personality
through the tone he adopts throughout the novel. Let us have a look at some of his
remarks:
b. The School (By Donald Barthelme)
Observe the tone of a short story, The School, by Donald Barthelme:
"And the trees all died. They were orange trees. I don't know why they died, they just
died. Something wrong with the soil possibly or maybe the stuff we got from the nursery
wasn't the best. We complained about it. So, we've got thirty kids there, each kid had his
or her little tree to plant and we've got these thirty dead trees. All these kids looking at
these little brown sticks, it was depressing.”
c. Robert Frost, in the last stanza of his poem The Road Not Taken, gives us an
insight into the effect of tone:
“I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I,
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.”

ACTIVITIES

Activity 1: Direction: Read and answer the following questions.

Annabel Lee
By: Edgar Allan Poe

It was many and many a year ago,

In a kingdom by the sea,
That a maiden there lived whom you may know by
the name of Annabel Lee;
And this maiden she lived with no other thought
Than to love and be loved by me.

I was a child and she was a child,

In this kingdom by the sea,

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 But we loved with a love that was more than love—
I and my Annabel Lee—
With a love that the winged seraphs of Heaven
Coveted her and me.
And this was the reason that, long ago,
In this kingdom by the sea,
A wind blew out of a cloud, chilling My
beautiful Annabel Lee;
So that her highborn kinsmen came
And bore her away from me,
To shut her up in a sepulcher
In this kingdom by the sea.

The angels, not half so happy in Heaven,

Went envying her and me—
Yes! —that was the reason (as all men know,
In this kingdom by the sea)
That the wind came out of the cloud by night,
Chilling and killing my Annabel Lee.

But our love it was stronger by far than the love

Of those who were older than we—
Of many far wiser than we—
And neither the angels in Heaven above
Nor the demons down under the sea
Can ever dissever my soul from the soul
Of the beautiful Annabel Lee;

For the moon never beams, without bringing me dreams

Of the beautiful Annabel Lee;
And the stars never rise, but I feel the bright eyes
Of the beautiful Annabel Lee;
And so, all the night-tide, I lie down by the side
Of my darling—my darling—my life and my bride,
In her sepulcher there by the sea— In her tomb by the
sounding sea.

Choose the letter of the best answer.

1. What is the theme of the poem?
a. The love between the narrator and Annabel is so strong it can't be stopped by
death.
b. When there are jealousy and envy bad things can happen.
c. When someone dies young it strongly influences our memories.
d. Sometimes bad things happen to good people.

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2. Which of the following quotes best supports this statement? "Love can sometimes
be so strong it cannot be stopped by death."
a. “I was a child and she was a child / In this kingdom by the sea; / But we loved
with a love that was more than love— / I and my Annabel Lee” (Lines 6-10)
b. “So that her highborn kinsman came / And bore her away from me / To shut
her up in a sepulcher / In this kingdom by the sea.” (Lines 17-20)
c. “The angels not half so happy in heaven / Went envying her and me— / Yes! —
that was the reason (Lines 21-24)
d. “And neither the angels in heaven above / Nor the demons down under the sea
/ Can ever dissever my soul from the soul / Of the beautiful Annabel Lee.”
(Lines 30-33)

3. Which of the following statements best summarizes (sums up) how the speaker
describes Annabel Lee?
a. The speaker describes her as coming from a wealthier family, which is why she
is taken from him.
b. The speaker describes her as fragile and dainty, which is why she becomes sick
so easily.
c. The speaker looks up to her, describing her as beautiful and seemingly having
no other purpose than to love the narrator.
d. The speaker looks up to her and describes her as perfect, but the narrator also
holds a lot of dislike for the way she treated him.

4. Why does the speaker focus his attention on Annabel Lee?

a. Because she was a young and innocent child
b. Because she was coveted by angels
c. Because she lived by the sea like the narrator
d. Because she loved the narrator and he loved her

5. Who did Edgar Allen Poe base the poem Annabel Lee on?
a. No one knows. It came from Poe's gloomy imagination, and possibly the death
of his wife.
b. A childhood friend believed the poem was written about her.
c. It was written about Poe's dead sister
d. Poe said it was based on the death of a friend's sweetheart.

WRAP-UP

Based on your understanding of the lesson, complete the given statement:

I have learned/discovered that GENRE is:

_________________________________________________________________________________
_________________________________________________________________________________
_________________________________________________________________________________

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 VALUING
Theme makes the writer adjust their vocabulary so as to better express the theme
in the proper tone. Both are needed in poetry because of the nature of the language and
structure. Both enhance the poetry experience and literature. Both can bring men and
women falling to their knees in wonder or pain.

ASSESSMENT

Directions: Identify the tone of the following lines in the poem. Choose the letter of the
best answer.

1. What is the best word for the tone in this excerpt from The Great Gatsby?
He smiled understandingly—much more than understandingly. It was one of those
rare smiles with a quality of eternal reassurance in it that you may come across four
or five times in life. It faced—or seemed to face—the whole eternal world for an
instant, and then concentrated on you with an irresistible prejudice in your favor.
a. Ironic b. Disillusioned c. Appreciative
2. Which one of these lines is the best example of a nostalgic tone?
a. I didn’t go to the moon; I went much further—for time is the longest distance
between two places. (The Glass Menagerie by Tennessee Williams)
b. He who controls the past controls the future. He who controls the present
controls the past. (1984 by George Orwell)
c. Scars have the strange power to remind us that our past is real. (All the Pretty
Horses by Cormac McCarthy)
3. What is the tone of these lines in the poem “Don Quixote”?
Having thus lost his understanding, he unluckily stumbled upon the oddest fancy
that ever entered into a madman's brain; for now, he thought it convenient and
necessary, as well for the increase of his honor, as the service of the public, to turn
knight-errant. -Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes
a. Cheerful b. sarcastic c. ironic
4. What is the tone of these lines in the poem “The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel
Hawthorne?”
The founders of a new colony, whatever Utopia of human virtue and happiness they
might originally project, have invariably recognized it among their earliest practical
necessities to allot a portion of the virgin soil as a cemetery, and another portion as
the site of a prison.
a. Ironic b. Skeptical c. sarcastic

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5. What is the tone of these lines in the poem” To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee”?
Neighbors bring food with death and flowers with sickness and little things in
between. Boo was our neighbor. He gave us two soap dolls, a broken watch and
chain, a pair of good-luck pennies, and our lives. But neighbors give in return. We
never put back into the tree what we took out of it: we had given him nothing, and it
made me sad.
a. Nostalgic b. tragedy c ironic

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