most essential learning competencies in creative writing

DepEd MELC 2024: Most Essential Learning Competencies

What is the meaning of K-12 Most Essential Learning Competencies (DepEd MELC)? The DepEd Most Essential Learning Competencies (MELCs) are learning competencies that were rephrased and deemed most essential in the achievement of content and performance standards. Its usage was implemented during the COVID-19 pandemic as one of the actions of the education department through the Learning Continuity Plan . Complete direct download links of the DepEd MELCs for Elementary (Grades 1-6), Junior High (Grades 7-10), and Senior High (Grades 11-12) with corresponding codes are available below. Get your pdf copies for free.

The Department of Education (DepED) issued a new Memorandum DM-CI-2020-000 titled “Clarification on the use of the Most Essential Learning Competencies (MELCs).” Read the full memorandum: DM-CI-2020-000

The MELCs shall serve as the primary reference of all schools, Schools Division Offices (SDO) and Regional offices (Ros) in determining and implementing learning delivery approaches that are suited to the local context and diversity of learners, while adapting to the challenges posed by COVID 19.

Accordingly, ROs, SDOs, and schools need not create a new list of learning competencies for the different learning areas since these are already available through the MELCs. Schools, SDOs, and ROs are encouraged to supplement the MELCs through their enhancement and contextualization, which specifically includes the preparation of Modules or Self-Learning Kits. K-12 Most Essential Learning Competencies (MELC) are also available at DepEd Commons

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K-12 Most Essential Learning Competencies (DepEd MELC) Download

Here are the downloadable pdf versions of DepEd K-12 Most Essential Learning Competencies (MELCs). These learning competencies were rephrased and deemed most essential in the achievement of content and performance standards. Download the files from the link below:

DepEd MELC by Learning Subject Areas

Also Read: Guides on using MELCS

Downloadable Resources for Teachers

If you’re looking for MELC-Based Learning Materials, we recommend you to use DepEd Commons .

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Our team, the Teach Pinas Team, through this website , YT channel , and social media accounts has been providing free and accessible downloadable materials for teachers since then. We aim to continue helping all teachers in this county, so we also ask for your support. If you want to contribute, please don’t hesitate to submit your content via our Contribute Page .

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Mathematics in elementary level MELC’s

Thank You, TEACH PINAS♥️♥️

Using the MELCs as the references, what is the significance of changing the curriculum during the pandemic time up to now.. pls i need to answer asap

What is Melcs 4 subjects in k-12? I need it asap..

Pasuyo po ng MELCS for TLE horticulture for grade 10. Thanks

DO YOU HAVE MELC FOR GRADE 11 AND 12 PHYSICAL EDUCATION ?

hello! do you have melcs for applied economics? thank you 🙂

Do you have MELC for Children with Special Needs specificlaly, Children with Intellectual Disability<

Hello, all new and MELCs are now available at DepEd Commons

Thank you 🙂

how about MELC for creative writing and creative nonfiction po?

Thank you so much po! You are a big help to us teachers.

how about po for SHS Core subjects????

kaya pala kanina pa ako naghahanap wala makita kindly update po for senior high in all strand and subjects maraming salamat sa ating mga masisipag na guro.

Sana meron din po for Specialized Subject

how about the melc for specialized subjects po?

bakit po walang science sa MELC sa K to 10?

bakit po wlang MELCS ang TVL AGRI CROP production and other related Agriculture specialization

Bakit po wlang MELCS for SHS applied science?

Creative Writer Skills

Learn about the skills that will be most essential for Creative Writers heading into 2025.

Getting Started as a Creative Writer

• What is a Creative Writer
• How To Become
• Certifications
• Tools & Software
• LinkedIn Guide
• Interview Questions
• Work-Life Balance
• Professional Goals
• Creative Writer Resumes
• Creative Writer Cover Letters
• Creative Writer Jobs

What Skills Does a Creative Writer Need?

Find the important skills for any job.

Types of Skills for Creative Writers

Imagination and originality, command of language, storytelling and structure, character development and dialogue, editing and revision, adaptability and market awareness, top hard skills for creative writers.

• Empathy and Emotional Intelligence
• Adaptability and Flexibility

Storytelling and Narrative Development

• Critical Thinking and Problem Solving
• Active Listening and Observation
• Time Management and Self-discipline
• Resilience and Perseverance
• Collaboration and Teamwork
• Creativity and Innovation
• Effective Communication and Interpersonal Skills

Top Soft Skills for Creative Writers

• Advanced Writing and Editing
• Storytelling Techniques and Narrative Development
• Research Skills for Authentic Content Creation
• Search Engine Optimization (SEO) for Writers
• Understanding of Publishing Tools and Digital Platforms
• Proficiency in Content Management Systems (CMS)
• Knowledge of Copyright and Intellectual Property Laws
• Scriptwriting and Screenwriting for Various Media
• Technical Writing and Documentation
• Data Storytelling and Visualization

Most Important Creative Writer Skills in 2024

Emotional intelligence and characterization, adaptability to publishing trends, strong research skills, digital literacy and online presence, editing and self-revision, mastering multiple genres and forms, collaboration and networking.

Show the Right Skills in Every Application

Creative writer skills by experience level, important skills for entry-level creative writers, important skills for mid-level creative writers, important skills for senior creative writers, most underrated skills for creative writers, 1. cultural sensitivity, 2. research proficiency, 3. active listening, how to demonstrate your skills as a creative writer in 2024, how you can upskill as a creative writer.

• Enroll in Advanced Writing Workshops: Participate in workshops led by esteemed writers to gain new perspectives and techniques in storytelling, character development, and genre-specific writing.
• Explore Diverse Reading Materials: Broaden your literary horizons by reading extensively across genres, cultures, and styles to inspire innovation in your own writing.
• Experiment with Different Writing Forms: Challenge yourself by writing in various formats such as poetry, flash fiction, or playwriting to enhance your versatility and creativity.
• Join Writing Communities: Connect with fellow writers through online forums, local writing groups, or social media networks to exchange feedback, support, and ideas.
• Attend Literary Festivals and Author Talks: Immerse yourself in the literary scene to stay abreast of industry trends and gather insights from successful authors.
• Practice Writing Regularly: Commit to a daily writing routine to sharpen your skills, build discipline, and foster a deeper understanding of your unique voice.
• Utilize Writing Software and Tools: Leverage the latest technology in writing software to aid with grammar, structure, and organization, allowing you to focus on the creative aspects of your work.
• Seek Constructive Criticism: Embrace feedback from editors, writing coaches, or peer review groups to identify areas for improvement and refine your writing.
• Study the Business of Writing: Understand the publishing industry, including marketing, agent representation, and self-publishing to better navigate the path to getting your work seen and sold.
• Invest in Personal Branding: Develop a strong online presence through a professional website, blog, or social media to build your audience and establish your reputation as a writer.

Skill FAQs for Creative Writers

What are the emerging skills for creative writers today, how can creative writers effectivley develop their soft skills, how important is technical expertise for creative writers.

Creative Writer Education

More Skills for Related Roles

Crafting compelling narratives, engaging audiences with powerful words and ideas

Crafting compelling narratives to drive brand engagement and consumer action

Shaping narratives, refining content to captivate audiences and uphold brand voice

Bringing sports stories to life, capturing the thrill and passion of the game

Translating complex tech jargon into clear, user-friendly content, bridging knowledge gaps

Start Your Creative Writer Career with Teal

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Creative Writing Skills: 6 Lessons You Need To Teach Today

So, you’re going to teach Creative Writing. Congratulations! Now comes the hard part–what exactly does that mean? What should you be teaching? What skills should your students be learning? In this post, I’m going to share some essential Creative Writing skills you should be teaching in your high school Creative Writing class. 

If you’re looking for more tips to teach Creative Writing, check out this post . And if you need help planning the Creative Writing semester, this post should help . 

(Looking to skip the planning entirely? Grab all of my Creative Writing skills lessons right here! )

Creative Writing Skills #1: Show. Don’t Tell.

The advice to “show, don’t tell” is some of the oldest and most consistent advice given to young writers. And it’s for a good reason–they really struggle with it!

About half of my students come into Creative Writing with these big elaborate stories they want to tell. But when they actually get into writing, their stories feel more like a list of events that happened. 

I’ve seen months of plot happen in just a paragraph of my students’ writing. Students need to learn to slow down and create an experience for their readers. It’s how a story unfolds, after all, that makes it worthwhile–not the events themselves. 

Tips for Teaching “Show. Don’t Tell”

Like all creative writing skills, you’ll want to show your students some really good mentor texts first . Find some excerpts from books with really juicy descriptions. Share these with your students. 

After they have some examples, give students time to try “telling” an event, description, or emotion instead of “showing” it. 

I do this by giving each student a “telling sentence” and asking them to turn it into a “showing” paragraph. A student might get a sentence that says something like, “Billy felt angry.” Then, they’ll have to write a whole paragraph that implies Billy is angry without actually saying it bluntly. 

If you want to save yourself some time (and the mental anguish of brainstorming a bunch of bland sentences), you can get my “Show. Don’t Tell” Mini-Lesson right here. It includes a slideshow, student worksheets, and those telling sentences.  

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Creative Writing Skills #2: Precise and Concise Language Choice

Now that your students are learning to slow down and offer descriptions in their writing, it’s time to help them focus on their word choice. 

Diction is immensely important to a writer–especially when storytelling gets more advanced. A lot of our students want to write down the first words that come to their minds and then “be done.” 

But we know great writing doesn’t happen like that. We have to teach our students to find the best word, not the first word–without abusing a thesaurus. 

Tips for Teaching Better Word Choice

First, you’ll want to show your students some examples of really great concise and precise word choice. You’ll also want to show some not-so-great examples. The comparison should be eye-opening for your students. 

Now, the best way to become more precise in your diction is to improve your vocabulary. We probably can’t make great strides in improving our students’ vocabulary in just a quarter or semester of Creative Writing. 

But we can show them how to improve some of the most commonly used vague language . One great example of this is the word “got.” 

It’s pretty rare that “got” is the best verb for a situation, but we–and our students–use it all the time. If we can teach students that “got” is a red flag for vague language, that’s a huge step!

We can also teach our students to avoid filler words. 

If you need help putting this all together in a lesson, I have a no-prep Precise and Concise Langauge Mini-Lesson right here for you . Included is a slideshow, students worksheets, and a reference handout for students they can use every day. 

Creative Writing Skills #3: Dialogue

Your students are starting to put words on a page and–hey–they’re not bad!

But at some point, your students are going to have their characters talk to each other. And this can be when stories get really, really bad. 

Early on in your Creative Writing class, encourage your students to start listening to the way others speak. Where do they pause? What slang do they use? When do they use complete sentences and when don’t they? You can even ask students to jot down conversations they overhear.

A great writer has an ear for dialogue, and this skill begins when students become aware of speech around them. Encouraging them to eavesdrop will help them write realistic dialogue later.  Just remind them to be respectful. Eavesdropping in the cafeteria is one thing. Listening outside someone’s bedroom door is another.

Our students not only struggle with mimicking real, authentic speech, but they also struggle with punctuating it. Depending on the skill level of your students, you may have to pick your battles here. Cheesy speech might be worth ignoring if there’s no quotation mark in sight. 

Tips for Teaching Dialogue Writing

First, and foremost, I like to cover punctuating dialogue first. For one reason, it’s because punctuating dialogue is either right or wrong. It’s easier to learn something that is objective. 

For another reason, I, personally, can’t stand reading poorly punctuated dialogue. My English teacher’s eyes just can’t see past it. 

Only once the quotation marks, commas, and periods are at least close to the right spot do I focus on trying to improve the content of students’ dialogue. 

Students’ dialogue writing is only going to get better through practice and observing real-life speech. However, you can give them some tips for writing dialogue better. 

For example, remind your students not to have characters talk too much . I’ve seen stories with pages and pages of dialogue. Each character’s every little “hi,” “‘sup?” and “‘nothin’ much” gets recorded. Let your students know they can skip anything that doesn’t add value to the story. 

If you need help planning this lesson, I have a done-for-you Dialogue Mini-lesson right here. It includes a slideshow lesson, worksheets for focusing on both punctuation and craft, and a writing exercise. Get it here. 

Creative Writing Skills #4: Mood

If you can only teach your students the above Creative Writing skills, you will no doubt improve their writing tremendously. But if you want to take your students’ writing up a notch, encourage them to think about the mood in their poetry and stories.  

Students will no doubt have heard this literary term from their regular English classes, but it’s always worth reviewing first. Plus, they’ve probably read for mood, but creating it is a totally different game. 

Tips for Teaching Mood

There are so many ways you can teach your students to create mood. It’s a pretty fun topic!

You might want to begin with some brainstorming. Like, what kind of mood might a horror story have? A comedy? You want students to understand why, as a writer, mastering mood is important to them. 

Then, like always, you’ll want to share some solid mentor texts. I love horror stories for showcasing well-written mood, but love poems are also good for this. 

Whenever possible in Creative Writing, I like to mix up the media, so I have students first analyze the mood of various classic paintings. As an English teacher, it tickles me to show students that these literary terms apply to art of all kind. Film clips would work really well, too. 

Then, challenge students to write a scene and evoke a specific mood. You could randomly assign the mood or let students pick. 

In my Mood Mini-Lesson , I have students analyze the mood in painting first. Then, I have them choose a card. Each card has a different mood written on it. Then, students must describe a setting that evokes that mood. You can get this mood lesson for yourself here.  

Creative Writing Skills #5: Tone

Well, if you’re going to teach mood, then tone is the likely next skill, right?

Teaching tone and mood is important because their differences are subtle, but important. Until students study tone, they might mistake it for mood and mix the two together. 

I never expect my students to master tone. It’s difficult and something that even professional writers polish over the course of many drafts. But it doesn’t hurt to get students thinking about the impact of their word choice. 

Don’t forget to remind students of the importance of choosing those precise and concise words. With tone, it’s truly what makes a difference. 

Tips for Teaching Tone

After defining tone and showing great examples of it to your students, give them some space to practice identifying it.  

I like to cover informal and formal tones–not just emotional tones. Identifying whether a piece of writing is formal or informal is a great first step for students. It’s a little easier but an important skill and might give your students a bit of confidence in their tone-identifying skills. 

Once they know what tone looks like, they can try to create it themselves.  

The activity I do involves having students write a short scene.

I randomly give my students a tone to use. I also randomly give them a situation. So, a student may have to describe “eating lunch in the cafeteria” with a “romantic” tone. The results can be pretty entertaining!

If that sounds like a lesson you’d like, you can get my Tone Mini-Lesson right here . Includes are a slideshow, students worksheets, and the slips for tones and situations.

And, if you’re teaching mood and tone, I have a FREE Mood and Tone Handout right here!

Creative Writing Skills #6: Voice

I put voice last in this blog post, but it could just as easily have been first. Voice is difficult to define for students, but it’s something they should be working on crafting throughout your whole Creative Writing class. 

Even if your students never quite master their literary voice (who does?), it’s a good skill to discuss with them. If students understand the concept of literary voice, it will make them better writers and more analytical readers. 

Tips for Teaching Literary Voice

You’ll first have to define voice for your students. This can be challenging. It might be easier to focus on a few aspects of voice–like diction or syntax–in order to explain the concept. 

Discuss with students their favorite authors. What does their “voice” sound like? What about the authors you’ve read and studied together?

Give students examples of strong voice to examine (the stronger the better). Have them discuss the techniques and style of each mentor text. 

To drive this home, I do a fun activity with my students. I take three very different poems by authors with very different voices. Then, I cut them up, line by line, and mix the three poems together. My students are then tasked with putting the poems back together!

To do this successfully, they’ll have to look for styles that match. Rhyming may be part of one author’s voice, but not another. One author may create a dark mood while another uses humor consistently. It’s a great way to drive home how voice can be an author’s calling card. 

This activity and some additional practice are included in my Voice Mini-lesson . Also included is a slideshow to introduce the concept. You can save yourself some time and get the lesson here. 

These are some skills that I think are essential for any Creative Writing class. There’s no one right way to teach any of these skills, and teaching from multiple angles is best. 

Whenever possible, I like to make my Creative Writing lessons hands-on. Even the most die-hard students get sick of writing every minute of every class. 

If you, too, would like some hands-on lessons and short activities that cover these essential skills, check out my Creative Writing Workshops Bundle . Each lesson includes everything you need to teach, model, and help your students master these skills one at a time. 

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Related Resources

Special curricular programs: guidelines on the use of the most essential learning competencies (melcs)- briefer view download.

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