1.5 page essay

In CLASS #1: What emotion, feeling, idea, sensation or tone is communicated by the descriptions below?

1. The wind forces the tree to bend until its tip grazes the ground and the thin trunk turns white at the point where it will break. But the trunk does not have time to crack in half before another gust yanks the tree in a different direction and presses its branches against the ground, pulsing like he hands of a torturer trying to keep the victim’s head under water.

2. Dead brown leaves are scattered on the dirt under a bare tree. They are curled in on themselves as if avoiding a flame. There is nothing colorful about the scene, nothing beautiful about these dead leaves. They look like bits of garbage that have been shredded by a raccoon and left in the sun to rot.

3. When the boy stands up in the car and rises through the sunroof to look out at the traffic, the car is traveling fast. So fast that the rush of wind makes it impossible for him to keep his eyes open, so he closes his eyes. His stomach clenches when his eyelids shut and the humming in his body suggests that he’s about to be launched into the sky. A tickling, itching agitation riots in his chest, and his mouth is wide open. He can’t tell if he is screaming or laughing.

4. The bead of white water rests like a pearl on the dark green leaf. Completely still, the tiny globe does not elongate into a stream of rain water. The sphere remains separate from everything else, settled alone on the eternity of its leaf.

5. The sound of the water falling from the roof is not the soothing and delicate sound of spring raindrops or droplets. It is the sound of pouring, the sound of a steady, heavy, unstoppable torrent of water, relentlessly slamming into the pavement. A liquid smacking noise when it hits like noses breaking or jaws cracking.

6. The water pours off the roof and splatters on the asphalt the way it does in the summer when water rises in an arc from the garden hose. No time to separate into drops. Instead, these large, imperfectly shaped globs of liquid elongate and smack the ground over and over, like applause because no one worries about getting wet. It is summer.

In CLASS #2: CREATE A QUIZ-Critical Thinking

A. Read the following explanation about Descriptive Writing As you read , breakdown the article into the main points

B. Create a 5 question quiz that covers all of the most important information C. Submit your 5 questions to Blackboard today.

WRITING A DESCRIPTIVE ESSAY

The aim of description is to make sensory details vividly present to the reader. Although it may be only in school that you are asked to write a specifically descriptive essay, description is an important element in many kinds of writing. Description embedded in an argument paper, for example, may be intended to make a position more persuasive. However, in this TIP Sheet we will discuss the descriptive essay as it is commonly assigned by instructors as an exercise in organizing sensory information and choosing vivid details.

Showing vs. telling

Sensory details are details of smell, taste, texture, and sound as well as sight. If you choose "showing" words, those that supply vivid sensory details appropriate to your subject and purpose, you will succeed in showing rather than telling. "Telling" words are usually vague or ambiguous; they can be interpreted in a variety of ways. The following first example mostly makes statements about what is lacking in the room, whereas the second example describes the sights, textures, smells, and sounds of the empty room:

Telling:

The empty room smelled stale and was devoid of furniture or floor covering; the single window lacked curtains or blinds of any kind.

Showing:

The apartment smelled of old cooking odors, cabbage, and mildew; our sneakers squeaked sharply against the scuffed wood floors, which reflected a haze of dusty sunlight from the one cobwebbed, gritty window.

"Showing" uses very specific details: cabbage and mildew, scuffed and dusty floors, unwashed windows. Though the writer of the second example does not actually use the word "empty," she nevertheless suggests emptiness and disuse. The suggestion of emptiness in the second example is more vivid than the statement of emptiness in the first. If you don't think the first example is vague, look at another possible interpretation of that empty room:

Showing:The sharp odor of fresh paint cut through the smell of newsprint. Four stacked cartons of inkjet printer paper sat squarely in the middle of a concrete floor, illuminated by a shaft of morning light from a sparkling chrome-framed window on the opposite wall.

Do not mistake explanation for description. Explanation is a kind of telling that interjects background material that does not contain sensory details or contribute to the overall effect–a character's motives or history, for example:

Explanation:

The tenants had moved out a week earlier because the house was being sold to a developer. No one had bothered to dust or clean because they assumed the apartment was going to be knocked down and replaced with single-family homes like those built just a block away.

When description devolves into explanation (telling rather than showing), it becomes boring.

Observing details

Once you are ready to abandon the attempt to explain or to tell about, evaluate your subject in terms of visual, auditory, and other sensory details. Think in concrete terms. The more you are interested in and connected to the subject, the easier it will be to interest your reader, so if you

describe a person, choose a person whose characteristics stand out to you. If you describe a place or a thing, choose one that is meaningful to you.

You are painting a picture that must be as clear and real as possible, so observe carefully and, preferably, in person. Note what sets this subject apart from others like it. If the subject is a person, include physical characteristics and mannerisms. Describe abstractions such as personality traits only insofar as you can observe them. For example, do not tell the reader your biology instructor is a neat, meticulous person; show your reader the instructor's "dust-free computer monitor and stacks of papers with corners precisely aligned, each stack sitting exactly three thumb-widths from the edge of the desk." How a subject interacts with others is fair game for description if you can observe the interaction. On the other hand, a subject's life history and world perspective may not be, unless you can infer them, for example, from the photos on his walls or the books on his bookshelf.

Similarly, if the subject of your description is an object or a place, you may include not only its physical appearance but also its geographic, historical, or emotional relevance-as long as you show or suggest it using sensory details, and avoid explaining.

Deciding on a purpose

Even description for description's sake should have a purpose. Is there an important overall impression you wish to convey? A central theme or general point? This is your thesis; organize your essay around it. For example, you might describe your car as your home away from home, full of snack foods, changes of clothing, old issues of the Chico News & Review, textbooks, and your favorite music. Or, you might describe your car as an immaculate, beautiful, pampered woman on whom you lavish attention and money. Just don't describe your car in cold, clinical detail, front to back (or bottom to top, or inside to outside) without having in mind the purpose, the overall impression you want to create. To achieve this impression, you should not necessarily include all details; use only those that suit your purpose.

Avoid telling a story unless it is of central importance to the description or an understanding of it. Keep background information to an absolute minimum or avoid it altogether.

Organizing

Extended description that lacks organization has a confusing, surreal quality and easily loses readers' interest, so choose an organizational plan. Use whatever progression seems logical–left to right, inside to outside, top to bottom-and stick to it. For example, it does not make sense to describe a person's facial features and hair, then his sonorous voice and impressive vocabulary, and then return to details about his eyebrows and glasses.

A quote from your subject or a brief anecdote about him or her may provide an interesting introduction (or conclusion); dialogue can be a great way to add interest to a descriptive essay. In your introduction, you might be permitted to make general, abstract statements (tell about) your subject or supply background information, as long as you demonstrate these points concretely later in the body of your essay.

Use vivid nouns, verbs, and adjectives, and appropriate metaphors, similes, comparisons, and contrasts. Avoid clichés.

Like the introduction, the conclusion is another place you can get away with reflecting about your subject: Why did you write this description? What is its significance to you? To your reader? If you have achieved your purpose, your conclusion should only confirm in the reader's mind what you have already shown him by your use of selected sensory details.

Purpose and Intention of Descriptive Writing When describing something, its important to remember that you are, on the one hand, presenting certain facts while, on the other hand, sharing your personal opinions, feeling, and impressions regarding the subject.

In CLASS #3 Using Description to Convey Emotion. A. Read the following notes B. 4-5 minute freewrite C. 10-15 minutes gathering sensory detail D.Write three descriptions using your details and convey a

specific emotion, feeling or state of mind.

A. NOTES: 1. Descriptive writing is based on 4 basic elements:

a. Awareness—make yourself be aware, make yourself notice (without judging) the world around you.

i. Self-Awareness-reflection ii. Awareness outside the self

2. The 5 senses 3. Concrete details. 4. Similes (Like or as) and metaphors.

PURPOSE of descriptive writing-To communicate information

INTENTION behind descriptive writing-To convey character emotion/ state of mind through detail.

B: Self-Awareness- EMOTIONS Freewriting=keep your pen moving=do not stop to correct, re-read, or think

One of the stronger emotions I've felt in my life was the time when…..

C: Outer-Awareness- DETAILS CREATE A LIST OF Concrete Details. List 5 details for each sense-25 details total Write down the following SOUND, SMELL, TASTE, TOUCH,SIGHT at the top of your paper 2-3 minutes focus on each sense only.

FOCUS ON SOUND-WRITE DOWN 5 SOUND DETAILS in 2-3 minutes FOCUS ON SMELL- WRITE DOWN 5 AROMA DETAILS in 2-3 minutes FOCUS ON TASTE-WRITE DOWN 5 TASTE DETAILS in 2-3 minutes FOCUS ON TOUCH-5 details FOCUS ON SIGHT-5 details

D: Assignment: Describe a detail or a confined space (room, cubicle) in a way that conveys a certain emotion, feeling or tone. 3 different versions

Notes & Examples HOW TO WRITE DETAILS THAT CONVEY EMOTION

a. DESCRIPTIVE TECHNIQUES i. --Opposition: Describe what something is NOT like, what characteristics it

does not have. ii. --Juxtaposition: describing two unrelated details in sequence to evoke a

deeper meaning. iii. Choose to describe the detail in language that supports the emotion iv. Use similes (comparisons using like or as) that help convey the feeling