Module 3: (Week 7-9) Prose

and Poetry
Module 3: (Week 7-9) Prose
and Poetry
Module 3: (Week 7-9) Prose
and Poetry
Module 3: (Week 7-9) Prose
and Poetry
Module 3: (Week 7-9) Prose and Poetry

Introduction
Objective:
At the end of the lesson, students are expected to:
1. Discuss Prose and Poetry
2. Identify the different types of prose and poetry
3. Write/Create samples for each type of prose and poetry

It’s quite difficult to define prose. Prose is not poetry and not drama.
Prose is the default way of communication in the Western World. It is the main
genre for fictional and non-fictional writing in books, newspapers, flyers, reports,
presentations, etc. Novels, business reports, manuals, cookery books, glossy
magazines, and transcriptions of conversations are all written in prose.
 Prose and poetry are two forms of writing. They are used to create written
works, from epics to songs to novels to essays. While poetry and prose are two
different forms of writing with many similarities and differences, both are valid
creative art forms that preserve life’s moments.

The first major difference between poetry and prose is their form. Prose has
sentences that are arranged in paragraphs; in contrast, poetry is freer flowing and
arranged into stanzas. The information presented in prose tends
to be more pragmatic than in poetry. In prose form, the sentences are in
paragraphs and follow each other, one after the other. The first word of each
sentence is capitalized. In contrast, there is less form and less punctuation in
poetry. Poetry is also organized into stanzas. The form of poetry often relies on
enjambment, which is went lines must be read after one another. Poetry divides
into shorter lines, instead of into multiple paragraphs which is seen in prose.

Pre-competency Checklist
Directions: Write a brief
difference between prose and
poetry.
Pre-competency Checklist
Directions: Write a brief
difference between prose and
poetry.
Pre-competency Checklist
 Directions: Write a brief
difference between prose and
poetry.
Pre-competency Checklist
Directions: Write a brief
difference between prose and
poetry.
Pre-competency Checklist
Directions: Write a brief
difference between prose and
poetry.
Pre-competency Checklist
Directions: Write a brief
difference between prose and
poetry.
 Pre-competency Checklist
Directions: Write a brief difference between prose and poetry.

Prose Poetry

Learning Resources
Link: https://www.theodysseyonline.com/poetry-prose-difference

https://www.teacherspayteachers.c
om/Browse/Search:poetry%20vs
%20prose
https://www.poetryfoundation.org/
poems/44263/fire-and-ice
https://genius.com/Langston-
hughes-mother-to-son-annotated
https://keydifferences.com/difference-between-prose-and-poetry.html
 https://www.masterclass.com/articles/understanding-prose-poetry
https://study.com/learn/lesson/what-is-a-prose-poem.html

Explore (Task/Activities)

A. Prose
A. Prose
1. Novel – This is a long narrative divided into chapters. The events
are taken from true to life stories.
2. Shorty Story - This is a narrative involving one or more
characters, one plot and single impression.
3. Fable - This is fictitious story wherein the characters are
represented by animals.
4. Legend – This is fictitious narrative which is usually about origin
of place, creation or a thing.
5. Anecdote - This is merely a product of the writer’s imagination
and its main aim is to bring out a moral to the readers.
6. Essay - This expresses the viewpoint or opinion of the writer
about a particular problem or event.
7. Biography – This deals with the life of a person written by
another person.
8. Autobiography – This deals with the life of a person written
by himself.
9. History – This deals with the events of the past.
10. News – A report of everyday events in a society.

a. Fiction Writing Basics

 Plot

Plot
Plot is what happens in a story, but action itself doesn’t
constitute plot. Plot is created by the manner in which the
writer arranges and organizes particular actions in a
meaningful way. It’s useful to think of plot as a chain reaction,
where a sequence of events causes other events to happen.

When reading a work of fiction, keep in mind that the

author has selected one line of action from the countless
possibilities of action available to her. Trying to understand
why the author chose a particular line of action over another
leads to a better understanding of how plot is working in a story.

This does not mean that events happen in

chronological order; the author may present a line of action
that happens after the story’s conclusion, or she may present
the reader with a line of action that is still to be determined.
Authors can’t present all the details related to an action, so
certain details are brought to the forefront, while others are
omitted.

The author imbues the story with meaning by a

selection of detail. The cause-and-effect connection between
one event and another should be logical and believable,
because the reader will lose interest if the relation between
events don’t seem significant. As Cleanth Brooks and Robert
Penn Warren wrote in Understanding Fiction, fiction is
interpretive: “Every story must indicate some basis for the
relation among its parts, for the story itself is a particular
writer’s way of saying how you can make sense of human
experience.”

If a sequence of events is merely reflexive, then plot

hasn’t come into play. Plot occurs when the writer examines
human reactions to situations that are always changing. How
does love, longing, regret and ambition play out in a story? It
depends on the character the writer has created.

Because plot depends on character, plot is what the

character does. Plot also fluctuates, so that something is
settled or thrown off balance in the end, or both. Traditionally,
a story begins with some kind of description that then leads
to a complication. The complication leads up to a crisis point
where something must change. This is the penultimate part of
the story, before the climax, or the most heightened moment
of a story.

In some stories, the climax is followed by a

denouement, or resolution of the climax. Making events
significant in plot begins with establishing a strong logic that
connects the events. Insofar as plot reveals some kind of
human value or some idea about the meaning of experience,
plot is related to theme.

 Character
Character can’t be separated from action, since we
come to understand a character by what she does. In stories,
characters drive the plot. The plot depends on the characters'
situations and how they respond to it. The actions that occur
in the plot are only believable if the character is believable.
For most traditional fiction, characters are divided into the
following categories:

Protagonist: the main or central character or hero

Antagonist: opponent or enemy of the protagonist Foil
Character: a character(s) who helps readers better understand
another character, usually the protagonist. For example, in the
Harry Potter series, Hermione and Ron are Harry’s friends, but
they also help readers better understand the protagonist, Harry.
Ron and Hermione represent personalities that in many ways
are opposites - Ron is a bit lazy and insecure; Hermione is
driven and confident. Harry exists in the middle, thus
illustrating his inner conflict and immaturity at the beginning of
the book.

 Theme
 If character is the most important aspect of fiction, then theme is the
“meaning” of a story. The “meaning” of a story shouldn’t be mistaken with
topic, however. What the writer makes of the topic constitutes theme
Some literary critics have claimed that theme is a lost art in
contemporary American fiction because we are not likely to ask of a story,
“What does it add up to?” We are more likely to make sure the cause-and-
effect points are rational and make sense. We appreciate meaningful
moments of insight in a story, but sometimes balk at asking big questions.
Such questions are considered old-fashioned, and the outdated qualities of
closure and epiphany have diminished the importance of theme.

 Conflict, Crisi, Resolution

Conflict and crisis are important to fiction because most readers
find trouble interesting. If characters are best friends who always get
along or have no age and personality difference, readers might not
find them compelling. If characters do not have internal or external
conflict to meet, deal with, and overcome (or fail to overcome), then
readers may find the story uninteresting.
In addition, conflict can be an effective device for driving plot.
In traditional patterns of fiction, readers are introduced to characters
and then something occurs that challenges the main character(s)
(protagonist). This complication is usually some sort of conflict or
crisis the characters must face, deal with, and/or overcome. The
conflict can be internal: a character’s battle with her depression. Or
the problem can be external: the protagonist dealing with her enemy,
the antagonist. Or the conflict can encompass both internal and
external elements: the protagonist must first deal with her depression
in order to overcome the conflict with the antagonist.
In order to overcome the crisis, the protagonist must make some
sort of important decision or take some kind of action; this is called
the penultimate part of the plot. The protagonist’s decision to deal
with the crisis then leads to the climax of the story, which shows the
reader the results of the protagonist’s choice.
Following the climax, the crisis is usually resolved (this part of
the plot is called the denouement), and then the story concludes.
 During the conclusion, readers learn how the protagonist has changed
(grown, learned, remained the same, become more evil, etc.) as a
result of the crisis.

 Point of View

Point of view refers to the perspective the author uses to tell the
story. Though authors may switch and combine points of view, in
traditional fiction there exists three points of view:

Third Person: In third person, the author tells the story. But the
author decides if the events will be objectively given, or if she can go
into the mind of every character; to what degree she can interpret that
character; to what degree she can know the past and the future; and
how many authorial judgments will be allowed. For example,
Chekhov uses Third person limited omniscient in his story, “Vanka.”
Chekhov tells us when Vanka is thinking, but he doesn’t go into detail
about what Vanka is thinking about. Chekhov lets the action show
what Vanka is thinking about.
If Chekhov had written the story in third person omniscient,
then we would know everything that was on Vanka’s mind, and we
would be given a great deal of interpretation about why Vanka acts the
way he acts. If Chekhov had chosen to write “Vanka” in Third person
objective, we would only get those details that could be outwardly
observed. Vanka would not pause to think twice about how he should
begin his letter to his grandfather. We might see him lift his pen, and
then start writing again, but nothing more.

Second Person: Second person is unusual in fiction and is more

common in poetry. In second person, the character is not referred to as
he or she, or by name, but rather as “you.” If Chekhov had written
“Vanka” in second person, it would begin like this: “You, a boy of
nine, who had been for three months apprenticed to Alyahin the
shoemaker, were sitting up on Christmas Eve.”
 First Person: Authors use first person when a narrator who is
also a character in the story speaks. Baldwin’s story, “Sonny’s Blues,”
is written in first person, and begins: “I read about it in the paper, in
the subway, on my way to work.” The narrator who speaks is Sonny’s
older brother, and he is also the main character in the story.

b. Creative Nonfiction: An Overview

The Creative Nonfiction (CNF) genre can be rather elusive. It is

focused on story, meaning it has a narrative plot with an inciting moment,
rising action, climax and denoument, just like fiction. However,
nonfiction only works if the story is based in truth, an accurate retelling
of the author’s life experiences. The pieces can vary greatly in length,
just as fiction can; anything from a book-length autobiography to a 500-
word food blog post can fall within the genre.

Additionally, the genre borrows some aspects, in terms of voice, from

poetry; poets generally look for truth and write about the realities they
see. While there are many exceptions to this, such as the persona poem,
the nonfiction genre depends on the writer’s ability to render their voice
in a realistic fashion, just as poetry so often does. Writer Richard Terrill,
in comparing the two forms, writes that the voice in creative nonfiction
aims “to engage the empathy” of the reader; that, much like a poet, the
writer uses “personal candor” to draw the reader in.
Creative Nonfiction encompasses many different forms of prose. As
an emerging form, CNF is closely entwined with fiction. Many fiction
writers make the cross-over to nonfiction occasionally, if only to write
essays on the craft of fiction. This can be done fairly easily, since the
ability to write good prose— beautiful description, realistic characters,
musical sentences—is required in both genres.

So what, then, makes the literary nonfiction genre unique?

The first key element of nonfiction—perhaps the most crucial thing— is that the
genre relies on the author’s ability to retell events that actually happened. The talented CNF
writer will certainly use imagination and craft to relay what has happened and tell a story,
but the story must be true. You may have heard the idiom that “truth is stranger than
fiction;” this is an essential part of the genre. Events—coincidences, love stories, stories of
loss—that may be expected or feel clichØd in fiction can be respected when they occur in
real life.

A writer of Creative Nonfiction should always be on the lookout

for material that can yield an essay; the world at-large is their subject
matter. Additionally, because Creative Nonfiction is focused on reality, it
relies on research to render events as accurately as possible. While it’s
certainly true that fiction writers also research their subjects (especially in
the case of historical fiction), CNF writers must be scrupulous in their
attention to detail. Their work is somewhat akin to that of a journalist,
and in fact, some journalism can fall under the umbrella of CNF as well.
Writer Christopher Cokinos claims, “done correctly, lived well, delivered
elegantly, such research uncovers not only facts of the world, but reveals
and shapes the world of the writer” (93). In addition to traditional
research methods, such as interviewing subjects or conducting database
searches, he relays Kate Bernheimer’s claim that “A lifetime of reading is
research:” any lived experience, even one that is read, can become
material for the writer.
The other key element, the thing present in all successful
nonfiction, is reflection. A person could have lived the most interesting
life and had experiences completely unique to them, but without context
—without reflection on how this life of experiences affected the writer—
the reader is left with the feeling that the writer hasn’t learned anything,
that the writer hasn’t grown. We need to see how the writer has grown
because a large part of nonfiction’s appeal is the lessons it offers us, the
models for ways of living: that the writer can survive a difficult or
strange experience and learn from it. Sean Ironman writes that while
“[r]eflection, or the second ‘I,’ is taught in every nonfiction course” (43),
writers often find it incredibly hard to actually include reflection in their
work. He expresses his frustration that “Students are stuck on the idea—
an idea that’s not entirely wrong—that readers need to think” (43), that
reflecting in their work would over-explain the ideas to the reader. Not
so. Instead, reflection offers “the crucial scene of the writer writing the
memoir” (44), of the present-day writer who is looking back on and
retelling the past. In a moment of reflection, the author steps out of the
 story to show a different kind of scene, in which they are sitting at their
computer or with their notebook in some quiet place, looking at where
they are now, versus where they were then; thinking critically about what
they’ve learned. This should ideally happen in small moments, maybe
single sentences, interspersed throughout the piece. Without reflection,
you have a collection of scenes open for interpretation—though they
might add up to nothing.

Sub-genres in Creative Nonfiction

Memoir
Memoir is perhaps the “flagship” of creative nonfiction, the sub-genre
most familiar to those outside of literary and academic circles. Most human
beings lead interesting lives filled with struggle, conflict, drama, decisions,
turning points, etc.; but not all of these stories translate into successful
memoir. The success of the memoir depends on the writer’s ability to
sequence events, to tell a story, and to describe characters in believable
ways, among other things. Writer Carol Spindel reminds us that in the mid-
2000s a scandal surrounding writer James Frey’s A Million Little Pieces
erupted after he was forced to admit that large sections of his “memoir” were
“fictionalized:” he’d embellished, made things up. A memoir that strays
from the truth is not far removed from lying, because regardless of the
writer’s intention, the story deceives the reader. Spindel writes that, unlike in
novels, “The knowledge expressed in the memoir has the legitimacy
acquired through first-hand experience.” Good memoir also provides
reflection on the events that have happened to the writer, so it “can give
readers insights into society, and even into the larger meaning of life itself”
(Spindel).

The Braided Essay

The braided essay is a good tool for introducing writers— especially
student writers—to the CNF genre. In a braided essay, the writer has
multiple “threads” or “through-lines” of material, each on a different subject.
The essay is broken into sections using medial white space, lines of white
space on a page where there are no words (much like stanzas in poetry), and
 each time there is a section break, the writer moves from one “thread” to
another. Braided essays take their name from this alternating of storylines, as
well as from the threads the story contains; there are usually three, though to
have four or two is also possible. Though there is not a strict formula for
success, the form usually contains at least one thread that is very personal
and based on memory, and at least one thread that is heavily researched.
Often, the threads seem very disparate at first, but by the climax of the essay,
the threads being to blend together; connections are revealed.

Topical Writing
Perhaps the genre closest to an essay or a blog post, topical writing is
an author’s take on a given topic of specific interest to the reader. For
example, nature writing and travel writing have been popular for centuries,
while food writing is gathering steam via cooking blogs. Nature writing
involves exploring the writer’s experience in a beautiful and thoroughly
rendered natural setting, such as a cabin on a mountaintop. Travel Writing,
as the name implies, details the writer’s experiences while traveling, whether
by choice on a vacation or out of necessity due to business or serving in the
military. Finally, contemporary food writing explores the writer’s connection
to cooking and enjoying food of any variety. All three will occasionally step
into the writer’s personal experiences via memories, but these episodes are
always related to the topic driving the essay.

Whatever form a creative nonfiction piece takes, it must remain based

in the author’s actual lived experiences and perceptions. Like academic
writing, the piece must be accurately researched and the sources must be
documented. Finally, the author must also always leave room to reflect on
how their experiences have shaped them into the person they are now. It’s
the reflection that makes the reader feel satisfied: it offers something to the
reader that they can carry with them, a way of seeing the world.

B. Poetry Elements of poetry

1. Rhythm – it implies an up down motion or rise, pause and fall.
2. Rhyme – is the repetition of similar sounds.
 3. Tone – it is the rhythmic melody of a poem
4. Foot- it is a basic unit in which a line of poetry is built.
5. Stanza – is the smaller unit or group of lines or a paragraph in a poem.
Stanzas are named as : couplets (2 lines), tercet (3 lines), quatrain (4
lines), cinquain (5 lines), sestet (6 lines), septet (7 lines) and octave (8
lines)
6. Imagery - This device is used by the poet for readers to create an
image in their imagination.

7. Symbolism – This is the symbol that is used in the poems which

convey ideas and thoughts, that leads the reader out of a systematic
and structured method of looking at things.
8. Theme – this is what the poem is about. It may be love, grief, sadness,
pain, family etc.

Types of Poetry
1. Narrative Poetry- This form describes important events in life,
either real or imaginary.
a. Epic – This is extended narrative about heroic exploits often
under supernatural control.
b. Metrical Tale – This is a narrative which is written in verse
and can be classified either as a ballad or a metrical tale.
c. Ballad - This is the shortest and simplest incident. There are
variations of this kind such as: love ballads, sea ballads etc.
2. Lyric Poetry- This kind of poetry is meant to be sung.
a. Folksongs – These are short poems intended to be sung. The
common theme is love, despair, hatred, doubt, joy, sorrow
and hope.
b. Sonnet – A 14-line poem with a rhyme scheme.

c. Elegy – This is a lyric poem which expresses feelings of

grief and melancholy and the theme of which is death.
d. Ode- This is a poem of noble feelings, expressed with
dignity, with no definite number of lines in a stanza.
 e. Psalm – This is a song praising God or the Blessed Virgin
Mary containing a philosophy of life.
3. Dramatic Poetry
a. Comedy – This form usually is light and written with
purpose of amusing spectators and has a happy ending.
b. Melodrama – This is used in musical plays and is related to
the tragedy. It arouses immediate and intense emotion and is
usually sad but with a happy ending for the principal
character.
c. Tragedy – The primary character has not overcome
desperate circumstances.
d. Farce- This is an exaggerated comedy. It seeks to arouse wit
by laughable lines and its situations are too ridiculous to be
true. The characters seem to be caricatures and the motives
undignified and absurd.

Poetry Writing: Invention

Poetry is an exciting form because it allows for a great deal of

exploration and experimentation. Most writers are acquainted with
poetry at a young age, through nursery rhymes or through children’s
poets such as Shel Silverstein or Jack Prelutsky. You may also be a
fan of rhyming poetry, and of some of the set forms for poems, such
as the sestina or the pantoum. These forms for poetry, along with the
other existing forms, give a new poet a place to start—a container to
be filled-in with one’s own ideas.

Most contemporary poets write in free-verse instead. Rhymes are not

common here; instead, the poem draws its shape from the natural
pauses between thoughts and images. Contemporary poets use line
breaks, caesura, and stanza breaks to slow a reader down or to
emphasize important ideas, instead of relying on the repetition of
sounds. Sound is still a vital element of contemporary poetry, but the
aesthetic principles (what we find beautiful) have changed from the
days of Shakespeare or even Robert Frost. The white space on the
page is a valuable tool for poets, as it gives the reader time to pause
and to make leaps between moments in the poem.
he hardest thing about writing a poem is often finding a place to start.
You may have been told to “write what you know”—always good
advice. Sometimes, certain images/moments/experiences will strike
you as somehow important; something happens, and you find yourself
thinking about it for days afterwards. It’s important, therefore, to
always be aware of the world around you—always looking for
inspiration.

Alternatively, you may sit down to write a poem with a specific

agenda in mind. You want to make a statement about the world,
maybe personal, maybe political, and you want to say it in through a
poem. Poems written this way require a lot of reflection, as the poet
works to find the images or narrative that will get their point across
skillfully and artfully.
Poet H. L. Hix writes that a poem always has a “synoptic moment,”
one in which “the whole is implicit in the part” (41). This moment
could also be considered the heart or main idea of the poem. The
poem may start with this moment—a technique Hix calls “expository”
(41). Alternatively, the poem may build up to that moment in a
“cumulative” way, meaning the point falls at the end (41). Many
writers begin a poem with an image and “write into” the synoptic
moment; they don’t know what that moment will be until they arrive
there. The opposite approach is to set out with the synoptic moment
already in mind. Nix writes:

Unless I reflect on—unless I choose—a poem’s aims, I remain

confined to received aim, those most typical of my time and place
(41). In other words, by beginning with an aim/something you want to
get across, you open yourself up to more possibility in terms of
imagery and form. By starting with an image, or by not knowing the
poem’s aims ahead of time, Hix suggests that you are limiting
yourself to only the images you see, things that are thrown into your
path by chance.

At times, you may feel less inspired—you may not have a set agenda
or “synoptic moment” in mind. That’s perfectly okay. Your own daily
life experience is rich in images and material for poetry; you just have
 to focus in on the material to find a starting point. When you want or
need to write something, you may have to prod your subconscious
into it— find a hidden moment or image that can become something.

Activities
A. Read the poem below then do the activities that follow.

A Bunny and a Bear

A bing and a bang, A

hip and a hop. That’s
the sound that you
hear,
When a bunny runs into a
bear.
Run bunny, run!
The bear is blinded by the sun!
World Black

bunny
run
hop
bing
sun
bear

What two animals are described in the poem?

_________________________________________________________
What is a word in the poem that rhymes with sing?
_________________________________________________________
What is a word in the poem that rhymes with top?
_________________________________________________________
What blinded the bear?
_________________________________________________________
What did the author tell the bunny to do?
_________________________________________________________

B. Differentiate the following:

a. Novel vs Short Story
b. Autobiography vs Biography
c. History vs News
d. Essay vs Anecdote

Discussion Board

Read fiction and nonfiction works such as short stories, novels,

biographies, news articles and essays.

Post-Competency Checklist
A. Read the poem below then answer the following:

Fire and Ice

BY ROBERT FROST
Some say the world will end in fire,
Some say in ice.
From what I’ve tasted of
desire I hold with those who
favor fire.
But if it had to perish twice,
I think I know enough of hate
To say that for destruction
ice Is also great And would
suffice.

1. What is the theme of the poem?

2. Give the imagery in the poem?
3. Explain the poem.

Mother to Son
BY LANGSTON HUGHES

Well, son, I’ll tell you:

Life for me ain’t been no crystal
stair.

It’s had tacks in it,

And splinters,
And boards torn up,
And places with no carpet on the floor—
Bare.

But all the time

I’se been a-climbin’ on,
And reachin’ landin’s,
And turnin’ corners,
And sometimes goin’ in the dark
Where there ain’t been no light.

So boy, don’t you turn back.

 Don’t you set down on the steps
’Cause you finds it’s kinder hard.
Don’t you fall now—
For I’se still goin’, honey,
I’se still climbin’, And life for me
ain’t been no crystal stair.

a. Explain the poem by stanza. Discuss the imagery and symbolism

used for each stanza.
b. Write your own short poem with the same theme from the poem
above.

B. Prose
1. Write your own Fable.
2. Write an autobiography.