Creative

Nonfiction
Time!!!
 Objectives:
1. Identify factual/nonfictional elements such as
plot, characters, characterization, point of view,
angle, setting and atmosphere, symbols ad
symbolism, irony, figures of speech, dialogue,
scene, other elements, and devices
2. Analyze factual/nonfictional elements in the
given texts.
News Story !!!
Direction: For clearer
understanding, read the news and
answer the following questions.
 Fatalities in Serandra
blast laid to rest
Published June 10, 2013, 7:37 am

The three fatalities in the blast at the Two

Serendra condominium in Taguig City last May
31 were laid rest in their home provinces over
the weekend.
Relatives of the three are not keen filing
charges against the condo’s management
as they sited potential high legal cost, radio
dzBB reported early Monday.

Sallymar Natividad was buried at a memorial

park in San Jose del Monte in Bulacan
province, the reporter said.
Natividad, the driver of the delivery van
crushed by debris from the explosion left
behind a pregnant widow and two children.
Another fatality, Marlon Bandiola, was
buried in Carmona in Cavite province.
The third fatality, Jeffrey Umali, was buried
in Nueva Ecija province, the reporter added.
Last May 31, a blast hit the Two Serendra
condominium, causing tension in the area,
including the shoppers at the nearby
commercial area.
An investigation showed the blast
stemmed from a gas explosion not a bomb.
1.What is the news all about?

a)Serendra victims filing charges

b)Serendra victims kill several people
c)Serendra victims being laid to rest
d)Serendra victims assisted by the
company
2. Who among the following are the victims
in the Selendra blast?

a)Jeffrey Umali
b)Malon Bandiola
c)Sallymar Natividad
d)All of the above
3. What places were mentioned in the
news?

a)Carmona, Cavite province

b)Taguig City
c)San Jose del Monte, Bulacan
d)All of the above
4.Where is this article most likely to
appear?

a)Serendra victims filing charges

b)Serendra victims kill several people
c)Serendra victims being laid to rest
d)Serendra victims assisted by the
company
5.Where is this article most likely to
appear in?

a.Fashion magazine
b.Newspaper
c.Cookbook
d.Poem anthology
 Reading Creative
Nonfiction
The text given exemplifies literary journalism which is
one of the most definitive example of literary fiction
but retains the journalistic foundation of news.
 The Coffin in the Living Room
Patricia Evangelista
June 13, 2013
BULACAN, Phillippines – The coffin is in the living room.
The room is small, eleven feet by six, just deep enough
for the coffin to stand flush against the wall, and wide
enough to crowd half a dozen mourners and one
sleeping cat.
The widow comes in from the outhouse
bathroom. Her name is Lilibeth. Her hair
is wet, there is a towel over her shoulder.
She smiles at the visitors, and says she is
looking for Hope.
The priest reads from the Bible.
Holy water is shaken over the
body of Sallymar Natividad. The
air smells of sweat and smoke
and chicken boiling in vinegar.
Hope is outside, crouched on the street
with four other boys, staring intently at
the spider crawling over the tip of his
finger. Someone calls out his name. He
runs into the house, slips past the crowd
and their paper plates of rice and chicken.
His mother is sitting beside the coffin.
There is a package on her lap. She rips
away the cellophane, shakes off the
cardboard, cuts the tag off the crisp white
T-shirt with a knife from the kitchen. The
red shirt comes off, the new shirt is pulled
on.
Lilibeth runs a hand over her Hope’s
rumpled hair. She says she must smile
and keep calm, because she is pregnant,
and the baby is due in two months.
Sallymar is dead, and he is leaving home
for the last time.
Sallymar’s brother Bong is standing alone
on the road, past the yard, under the tent
sent by the local congressman. He is 34
years old, a skinny man in a white and
green Rough Rider polo. There was a
phone call, he says, Abenson’s was on the
line, saying there had been an accident.
He didn’t know his brother was dead until four
in the morning of the next day, June 1.
Sallymar Natividad died at 8:10 in the evening of
May 31, exactly two weeks ago, died because
the outer wall of Unit 501 of Serendra 2 Building
B went flying outward just when Sallymar was
driving down 22nd Avenue in an Abenson’s van.
Bong does not remember the last thing his
brother told him, even if he remembers when
they last spoke. It was May 1, a full month ago.
“Now we’ll never finish that conversation.”
The living room empties, to let in the
pallbearers. The door is too narrow for the
coffin. Someone looks for a hammer.
Lilibeth watches through the window as a neighbor in a
baseball cap pounds away at the already broken concrete
frame. An inch, two inches, three, the chunks flying out to
land on the mud outside. Now the lid is closed, now the
coffin is lifted, now it is angled, pushed, reversed. Imelda
is 37, the second in the family. She and Sallymar are close,
she says. He sent her money, even when she had a
husband of her own. She says he would cook on his days
off, the same way he did when they were growing up.
On June 1, at six in the morning, she got a call
from her younger brother Bong. He said
Sallymar was dead. He said he was in the
funeral parlor, in Pasay. She didn’t believe him,
until a cousin bought a newspaper at 9 in the
morning and she saw a picture of the crushed
truck her brother used to drive.
He wanted his children to graduate, she
says. He wanted to finish building his
house. He painted it himself, the week
before he died.
Imelda says they always talked about their mother.
He wanted her treated well. Their mother was not
in her right mind, says Imelda, not since she fell
and hit her head the year before. Now she sits and
laughs softly. Sallymar’s mother Ursulita does not
remember very much. Her daughter says she has
the mind of a young child. Ursulita asks about
Sallymar, but she does not understand the answer.
Ursulita Natividad does not know her son is
dead. She sees the coffin of her firstborn son,
and thinks it is her brother, or father, or cousin.
Her children tell her he is dead, sometimes they
think she understands. They tell her about the
explosion. She would nod, but she is not very
interested. Sometimes she cries. They are not
sure why.
On the day he is buried, his wife Lilibeth finally
weeps. They are not the quiet tears that the
video cameras aired on national television, but
wracking, painful sobs that erupt while she
hangs on to his coffin. Her neighbors tell her to
step away. They tell her not to let her tears fall
on the coffin. They say it is bad luck.
Imelda stands before her brother. She
says she will not let him down. She
promises they will take care of their
mother, all of them who are left
behind. She thanks him, thanks him
again and again.
Ursulita stands before the coffin. She
rubs at the tears on the glass lid. She
does not cry. She tilts her head, looks at
her dead firstborn. She says his name.
She rubs at the coffin a long time.
The mourners walk to the waiting jeeps.
Hope is watching his 14-year-old sister Ivy,
who stays standing by her father’s grave.
She leaves only when the gravediggers
have filled the gaping hole.
Later she sits on the grass. She says she misses
her father. She says she worries about her
mother, she says Lilibeth only pretends to be
fine. She will go back to school, because there
is nothing better to do. She says Hope still does
not understand, but she will be there when he
does.
Lilibeth says she has no plans. She will
clean the house her husband painted, and
wait for what comes next. It is Father’s
Day today, and Sallymar is dead. –
Rappler
 GIST
of the Story
Direction: Using your own words retell in
five events Patricia Evangelista's coffin in
the living room.
Events Question Response

1. How does the story begin?

What crisis do the people in the story
2.
face?
3. How do the characters deal with the
problems at hand?
What happens to the characters after
4.
dealing with the crisis?
5. How does the story end?
 Recognizing the Essential
Elements
Element Setting
It is the surroundings and time in which the events of a
story take place. Settings can include the era or period,
Definition: date and time of the day, geographical location, weather
and natural surroundings, immediate surroundings of a
character, and social conditions.

Example:
Element Characters
These are the individuals in the story. Characterization is the process
by which the writer reveals the personality of a character on many
Definition: ways such as speech, thoughts, the effect on others, actions and
looks.
Example:

Element: Dialogue
Definition These are the utterances that the character say to each other.

Examples
Element: Atmosphere
Also known as the mood, it is the dominant
emotion/feeling that pervades a story. It is less physical
and more symbolic, associative and suggestive than the
setting, but often akin to the setting. Every story has some
Definition:
kind of atmosphere, but in some time, it may be the most
important feature or, at least, a key to the main points of
the story. Atmosphere is created by descriptive details,
dialogue, narrative language and such.

Example:
Element: Point of View

In a narrative, the point of view is the perspective from which a story is

told. There are three common types of point of view:
1. The first person point of view is used when the narrator of the
author is also the character in the story and tells it from her point
of view. The pronoun “we” or “I” is frequently used here.
Definition: 2. The second person point of view tells a story as if the story is
happening to the reader himself. The pronoun “you” or “yours” is
commonly used.
3. The third person point view tells the story from an outsider’s
perspective. He or she is not a character in the story and refers to
the characters using the pronoun “he”, “she”, or “they”

Example:
Element: Plot
The plot is the series of events and scenes that occur in
a story. The structure of the plot is the method or
sequence in which incidents in a narrative are
Definition:
organized/presented to the audience/readers. Almost
all plots follow the basic sequence such as reflected in
the Freytag’s Pyramid.

The following events form the plot of The Coffin in the

Example:
Living Room.
Exposition:

Rising Action:

Climax:

Falling Action:

Resolution:
Element: Symbols and Symbolism

Symbols are the concrete objects/images that stands for

abstract subjects. The objects and images have the
Definition: meaning of their own but can be ascribed subjective such
as heart=love, skull & crossbones=prison, color
green=envy ;light bulb=idea.

Example:
Figures of Speech
Simile
✿ a figure of speech that
involves a direct comparison
between two unlike things,
usually using the words “like”
or “as”
Metaphor

✿Is a figure of speech that

compare two unlike things without
using the words like or as and
states the comparison as if it were
fact.
Personification

✿Is a figure of speech that

appropriates human attributes
and qualities to an animal, an
object, or an idea.
Hyperbole

✿An outrageous exaggeration

that emphasizes a point and can
be ridiculous or funny.
Irony

✿A figure speech in which one

thing is said when the opposite is
meant
Allusion
✿A reference in a work of Literature
to another work of literature or a
well-known person, place, or event
outside of literature. There are several
types of allusion including literary,
biblical, historical, and cultural.