OBJECTIVES

Understand the choice of words

and how these words are arranged in
a sentence that show creativity in the
use of language and the underlying
theme.

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 OBJECTIVES

Define the difference

between the diction and
syntax and be able to apply
it.
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 Diction

📌 Diction is the choice of words

used by the writers.

📌 Good writing makes good

use of diction.

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📌 Poetry has a unique diction such as
the use of imagery, Figures of speech,
and rhyming words, among others. The
sense of musicality that you notice in
each line of verse is called rhyme, which
most poetry have.

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📌 End rhyme and perfect rhyme are in
the sample poem. As the term suggests,
end rhyme is the presence of the
rhyming words at the end of the line. It
is a perfect rhyme if the words sound
exactly the same.

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Example:
“I prize thy love more
than whole mines of gold,

Or all the riches that the

East doth hold.”

(Anne Bradstreet, “To My Dear and Loving Husband")

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📌 The use of antiquated words such as
“thy” instead of “your” and “doth"
instead of “do” gives the poem a formal
diction.

These antiquated words are considered

grand, elevated, and sophisticated
language.

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“Because I could not
stop for Death -

He kindly stopped for

me –

-Emily Dickinson,“Because I could Not Stop for Death“

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📌 The words “kindly” and “stopped"
are simple vocabulary and used here in
their ordinary definitions; The use of
these words effects a casual and
conversational diction rather than a
formal one.

Thus, the work projects an approachable

and comforting tone.

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 “Because I could not stop for Death -
He kindly stopped for me –

📌 The words “kindly” and “stopped" are simple

vocabulary and used here in their ordinary
definitions; The use of these words effects a casual
and conversational diction rather than a formal one.

Thus, the work projects an approachable and

comforting tone.

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How about the mention of Death?

What figure of speech was used?

How is Death viewed here: an ordinary

person, a fearsome one, or a supernatural
being?

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SYNTAX
Syntax is how the words are arranged in
a sentence or line.

The usual syntax is. of course, subject-

verb.

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However, an unusual order of words in a
sentence, including repetition of words,
may be used to convey different tones,
moods, themes, or emphases of the
literary work.

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 “Go out I cannot, nor can I stay in,
Becalmed mid carpet, breathless, on the road,
To nowhere and the road has petered out."

- PJ Kavanagh, “Beyond Decoration”

To write the first line of verse in its ordinary order,

we can say, “I cannot go out or stay in" with emphasis on the doer
of the action or the subject “I,” By reversing the word order,
the author seems to emphasize the word “cannot."

Notice the difference as you read the sentences in different word orders.

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“Rejoice for those around you who transform into the
Force. Mourn them, do not. Miss them, do not.
Attachment leads to jealousy. The shadow of greed, that
is.”

-Yoda, “Star Wars”

Is there a difference when you say,

“Do not mourn them.
Do not miss them.
That is the shadow of greed”?

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 “What light from yonder window breaks?"

-Wiliiam Shakespeare, “Romeo and Juliet”

Look at the expression:

“What light breaks from yonder window?”
word order is reversed with the verb at the end
of the sentence. Is the work more creative this way?

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The interplay between diction and
syntax makes a sentence or verse
longer or shorter.

Just like diction and syntax

themselves, this interplay between
them affects tone,
mood, theme, or emphasis of the
literary work.

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“MACBETH: Is this a dagger which I see before me,

The handle toward my hand? Come, let me clutch thee.

‘l have thee not, and yet I see thee still.

Art thou not, fatal vision, sensible

To feeling as to sight? Or art thou but

A dagger of the mind, a false creation, Proceeding from the

heat-oppressed brain?”

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MACBETH: I have done the deed. Didst thou not hear a
noise?

LADY MACBETH: l heard the owl scream and the crickets

cry. . Did not you speak?

MACBETH: When?

LADY MACBETH: Now.

MACBETH: As I descended?

LADY MACBETH: Ay.

--William Shakespeare, “Macbeth”

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Read the selections below and answer the questions on diction:

“It seemed to me that a careful examination of the (Sherlock is talking to Watson, a close
room and the lawn might possibly reveal some traces friend.) Are formal words and sentence
of this mysterious individual. You know my methods, structure used here?
Watson. There was not one of them which I did not
apply to the inquiry. And it ended by my discovering
traces, but very different ones from those which I had
expected.”
-Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, “The Memoirs of
Sherlock Holmes”

“Ah, happy, happy boughs! that cannot shed What word or words tell us whether this is
Your leaves, nor ever bid the spring adieu” formal or informal diction?

-John Keats, “Ode on a Grecian Urn”

“Well, theory says I, what’s the use you learning to do What word or words tell us whether this is
right, when it's troublesome to do right and it ain’t no formal or informal diction? is there unusual
trouble to do wrong, and the wages is just the same?” syntax here?

~Mark Twain, “The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn"

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Read the selections below and answer the questions on diction:

The reason no man knows; let it suffice Is there unusual syntax here? How can this be
What we behold is censured by our eyes. written in the usual word order?
Where both deliberate, the love is slight:
Who ever loved, that loved not at first sight?

-Christopher Marlowe, “Who Ever Loved That Loved

not at First Sight?”
Once more the storm is howling, and half hid What words stand out? Do these words evoke
Under this cradle-hood and coverlid positive or negative feelings? What feelings are
My child sleeps on. There is no obstacle these?
But Gregory s wood and one bare hill
Whereby the haystack- and roof-Ievelling wind,
Bred on the Atlantic, can be stayed;
And for an hour I have walked and prayed
Because of the great gloom that is in my mind.

-W. B. Yeats, “A Prayer for my Daughter"

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 The Watercress Girl

Taken from London Labour and the London Poor: Henry

Mayhew (1851)

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 Theme

- is the topic or central idea, which

is universal in nature. It is an
underlying truth. it may be what the
reader thinks the story is about or
what the work says about a given
subject.

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 Rarely is the theme conveyed
directly. Most often, the reader
figures out the theme by analyzing
the elements of the work such as
imagery, figures of speech, tone,
mood, diction, syntax, charactets,
setting, or the events in the story or
plot.

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 It maybe one word such as
love or truth, or a universal
statement such as “Love con
quers all odds.” or “The truth
sets one free.”

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 Examine the following examples:

First of all,” he said, “if you learn a

simple trick, Scout, you’ll get along a
lot better with all kinds of folks. You
never really understand a person
until you consider things from his
point of view. .. until Climb into his
skin and walk around in it."
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Requirement:
Journal Notebook

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 OBJECTIVES
Understand the choice of
words and how these words
are arranged in a sentence
that show creativity in the use
of language and the
underlying theme.

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 Examine the following examples:

“I began to see what people were

capable of doing. Anyone who
moved through those years without
understanding that man produces
evil as a bee produces honey, must
have been blind or wrong in the
head.”
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The writer believes that the evil is innate
in humans, even in children.
This is how the writer stands on the
topic, and this is the theme developed in
the whole work.

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Love’s Secret
Never seek to tell thy love,
Love that never told can be;
For the gentle wind doth move
Silently, Invisibly.

I told my love, I told my love,

I told her all my heart,
Trembling, cold, in ghastly fears.
Ah! She did depart!

Soon after she was gone from me,

A traveler came by,
Silently, Invisibly:
He took her with a sigh.
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 Keeping your love a secret will
spare you from pain of rejection.

Do you agree with the theme?

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 Theme team
From teams of five and figure out the theme of the
following selections:
Selection Theme
“From the very beginning - from the first
moment, I may almost say - of my
acquaintance with you, your manners.
impressing me with the fullest belief of your
arrogance, your conceit, and your selfish
disdain of the feelings of others, were such
as to form the groundwork of disapprobation
on which succeeding events have built so
immovable a dislike; and I had not known
you a month before I felt that you were the
last man in the world whom I could ever be
prevailed on to marry.”

--Jane Austen, “Pride and Prejudice"

p. 44-46 Creative Writing
 Selection Theme
“I wish to Heaven I was married,” she said
resentfuIIy as she attacked the yams with
loathing. “I'm tired of everIastingly being
unnatural and never doing anything I want to
do. I'm tired of acting like I don’t eat more
than a bird, and walking when I want to run
and saying I feel faint after a waltz, when I
could dance for two days and never get
tired.

“I’m tired of saying, ‘How wonderful you are!’

to fool men who haven't got one-half the
sense I've got, and I’m tired of pretending I
don’t know anything, so men can tell me
things and' feel important while they’re doing
it... I can’t eat another bite.”

--Margaret Mitchell, “Gone with the Wind”

 Selection Theme
“They appear to take as little note of one
another, as any two people, enclosed within
the same walls, could. But whether each
evermore watches and suspects the other,
evermore mistrustful of some great
reservation; whether each is evermore
prepared at all points for the other, and
never to be taken unawares; what each
would give to know how much the other
knows all this is hidden, for the time, in their
own hearts."
 Selection Theme
“To be, or not to be: that is the question:
Whether ‘tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous
fortune,
Or to take arms against a sea of
troubles,
And by opposing end them? To die: to
sleep;
No more; and, by a sleep to say we end
The heart-ache and the thousand natural
shocks
That flesh is heir to, ‘tis a consummation
Devoutly to be wish’d. To die, to sleep;
To' sleep: perchance to dream: ay,
there’s the rub."

--William Shakespeare, “Hamlet”

 Selection Theme
“You may write me down in
history with your bitter, twisted
lies, You may trod me in the very
dirt But still, like dust, I'll rise?“

--Maya Angelou, “Still I Rise”

Nothing Gold Can Stay
By: Robert Frost

Nature’s first green is gold,

Her hardest hue to hold.
Her early leaf’s a flower;
But only so an hour.

Then leaf subsides to leaf.

So Eden sank to grief,
So dawn goes down to day.
Nothing gold can stay.
Only Words
Revisit your list of things that change. Write an appropriate
description for each, i.e., what do they look, sound, taste, smell, or
feel like? What can they do? What are they similar to?

For example: Day -a promise of tomorrow; a new beginning; light

and bubbly; fresh air; shining moment; warm and gomforting; an
anticipated present

Nightdark and gloomy; death; scary; anger and despair; rest and
s|eep; welcome respite; alone and lonely; dreaming; starry and
bright; lifeless; bright and upbeat

Compare your work with that of a classmate. Together, decide if

the descriptions‘are appropriate and why.

42 p. 47 / Creative Writing
Spice Words
Here are some quotations about change. Reverse or rearrange the
words and wake them sound or look creative.

1. “I alone cannot change the world, but I can cast a stone across
the waters to create many ripples.”
--MotherTeresa

2. “If you don’t-like something, Change it; if you can’t change it,
change the way you‘ think about it.”
-Mary Engelbreit

3. “Man Cannot discover new oceans unless he has the courage to

lose sight of the shore.” '
-André Gide

43 p. 47-48 / Creative Writing

4. “When we are no longer able to change a situation, we are challenged e
ourselves." to chang Am“
-VictorFrank

5. “Lay a firm foundation with the bricks that others throw at you.”
--David Brinkley 7

6. “You must welcome change as the rule but not as your ruler.”
-Denis Waitley

7. "Tame takes it all, whether you want it to or not." ‘ --Stephen King

8. “The world hates change, yet it is the only thing that has brought
progress.” --Charles Kettering

9. Change is the law of life. And those who look only to the past or present
are certain to miss the future.”
-John F. Kennedy

44 p. 47-48 / Creative Writing

Your school is looking for a representative to the
interschool Literary Competition. You would like to
represent your school in this contest.

Any literary genre is accepted as long as the theme is

“Change Do Not.” These are things you wish would never
change. Pay attention to diction and syntax as you write.

In preparation for the full literary work, you start making

short paragraphs or vignettes of at least 120 words on the
topic. That which you consider as your best output shall
be submitted and graded according to the following
rubric:

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 Imaginative Writing Rubric: Theme, Diction, and Syntax
Criteria 5 Points 3 Points 1 Points
Theme Focus on the theme Focus on the theme Focus on the theme
from beginning to is lost in one or two is lost in more than
end is clear. line/s or sentence/s. two line/s or
sentence/s.
Diction Words used are One or two More than two
appropriate for the spelling/s or words used are
topic. grammar error/s are inappropriate for the
Vdetected. topic
Syntax Creativity in the There is little No creativity in the
arrangement of creativity in the arrangement of
words in all lines or arrangement of words in one line or
sentences. words 'or sentences. sentence is obvious.

Writing Standards No spelling or One or two More than two

grammatical error is spelling/s or grammar errors are
detected. grammar error/s are detected.
detected.

46 p. 48-49/ Creative Writing

The choice of words and the manner in which these
words are arranged in a ' sentence show creativity in
the use of language and the underlying theme.

The choice of words is called diction, while the

arrangement of words is syntax. The interplay of diction
and syntax adds beauty and creativity to the written
work. Theme is the underlying message or the central
idea of the whole work. It is mostly indirectly presented
through the language, setting, plot, or characters in the
work. it may be what the reader thinks the work is
about or how the work takes a stand on the matter it
presents.

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