CREATIVE NON FICTION ACTIVITY SHEET
A. Practice Tasks Task 1: UNRIDDLING CREATIVE NONFICTION
Answer the questions below.
1. What is creative nonfiction?
2. How is creative nonfiction similar to other forms of writing?
3. How does it differ to other literary genres such as fiction, poetry and
drama?
Task 2: CNF ELEMENTS IN A BUBBLE! Using a bubble chart, identify the
elements of creative nonfiction. Write brief descriptions for each of the elements.
(20 pts)
Task 3: A CLOSE LOOK AT A NONFICTION TEXT Read the excerpt below and
answer the questions afterwards.
Why I Still Use Facebook (an excerpt)
Studies say Facebook is addicting. I can agree with that statement. I check
Facebook very often. It is hard to say how many times a day I look at it.
However, I post once a day or less. Sometimes I will go through periods where I
check Facebook once a day or less. Yet, I can still say I am addicted to it,
because I almost always have it opened in a tab at work and at home when I am
working on creative work. This is mostly because I use it as a communication
tool, messaging people close to me. Many times, I arrange events through
Facebook’s messaging system. It seems in the new generation, messaging is
more popular than calling by phone. Organizing events by phone is seen more as
a nuisance now than a necessity. So, yes, I am addicted, but this mental disease
is not crippling. Maybe I would be more productive without keeping Facebook
open most of the day, but I still do well at work, practice music each day, learn a
foreign language, and do creative writing daily as well—all the while being a
husband and being a dad to a dog. (Nicholas Klacsanzky)
1. What does the text talk about?
2. From what point of view is it written? Where do you think did the
author base the content of his text?
3. Comment on how it is written. What can you say about the style and
the language used?
4. What do you think of the idea(s) presented in the text? Are they true
or imaginary? What makes you say so.?
B. Assessment
Directions: Read the following creative nonfiction work and fill in the table that
follow with elements found in the selection.
The Long Walk to Freedom (an excerpt)
(Nelson Mandela)
When I was not much more than a newborn child, my father was involved in a
dispute that deprived him of his chieftainship at Mvezo and revealed a strain in
his character I believe he passed on to his son. I maintain that nurture, rather
than nature, is the primary molder of personality, but my father possessed a
proud rebelliousness, a stubborn sense of fairness that I recognize in myself. As
a chief— or headman, as it was often known among the whites — my father was
compelled to account for his stewardship not only to the Thembu king but to the
local magistrate. One day one of my father’s subjects lodged a complaint against
him involving an ox that had strayed from its owner. The magistrate accordingly
sent a message ordering my father to appear before him. When my father
received the summons, he sent back the following reply: “Andizi, disaqula” (I will
not come, I am still girding for battle). One did not defy magistrates in those
days. Such behavior would be regarded as the height of insolence — and in this
case it was. My father’s response bespoke his belief that the magistrate had no
legitimate power over him. When it came to tribal matters, he was guided not by
the laws of the king of England, but by Thembu custom. This defiance was not a
fit of pique, but a matter of principle. He was asserting his traditional prerogative
as a chief and was challenging the authority of the magistrate. When the
magistrate received my father’s response, he promptly charged him with
insubordination. There was no inquiry or investigation; that was reserved for
white civil servants. The magistrate simply deposed my father, thus ending the
Mandela family chieftainship. I was unaware of these events at the time, but I
was not unaffected. My father, who was a wealthy nobleman by the standards of
his time, lost both his fortune and his title. He was deprived of most of his herd
and land, and the revenue that came with them. Because of our straitened
circumstances, my mother moved to Qunu, a slightly larger village north of
Mvezo, where she would have the support of friends and relations. We lived in a
less grand style in Qunu, but it was in that village near Umtata that I spent the
happiest years of my boyhood and whence I trace my earliest memories.
