SUMMER LETTERS AND PICTURE POSTCARDS

by Karen Leggett Abouraya

There was a time before Facebook and Flickr when people mailed picture postcards to friends and family as they traveled on vacation. They were often called “penny postcards” because the stamp cost just a penny. Here is one from Washington, D.C. in which the writer - Celinda, my grandmother - tells of voting and attending a luncheon with other Daughters of the American Revolution from Ohio. You’ll also notice that this 1935 postcard bears an address with just a name and a town!

Why not make this the summer to bring back the pleasure of picture postcards and summer letters? A dear friend of mine who goes to Minnesota to fish every summer often writes four to six page letters by hand; they can’t be read on the fly as we do with emails and Facebook posts. They must be savored, as I visualize the family members or fishing adventures he describes.

Debbie Levy devotes her award-winning book, The Year of Good-Byes: A True Story of Friendship, Family, and Farewells, to the beauty and emotional power of much shorter handwritten notes.  The notes include drawings and poetry in a poesiealbum, or autograph book, kept by Debbie’s mother Jutta during her last year in Germany in 1938. Young readers continue to add their own poetry to Debbie’s Poesiealbum Project.

In Valerie Tripp’s American Girl book, Changes for Kit, Kit Kittredge writes a letter to the editor dictated by her uncle. She disagreed with it so completely that she wrote her own - and the newspaper printed hers! The teachers who developed the website Books Kids Love include a long list of titles perfect for encouraging letter writing.

Letters help us preserve memories, make political statements or just add pleasure to a friend’s day. Encourage students to write and send a picture postcard from wherever they are going this summer - or even from their own hometown.  It is a chance to practice the mechanics of writing an address correctly when it includes more than just a @ and a dot. The space on a postcard is small enough that even reluctant writers might be inspired. A 140-character Tweet would fit just fine!

Encourage students to

•   describe something colorful or interesting in a few carefully chosen words, or

•   tell what they have been doing so that the reader could visualize it, or

•   make a connection with the reader by mentioning something they have in common that relates to the picture or place (hearing a band they both like, seeing a funny dog or cat, flying a kite on the beach), or

•   send postcards to a teacher at school so they can be shared in the fall.

Wishing everyone a lovely summer, filled with books - and letters!

http://childrensbookguild.org/karen-leggett-abouraya

VIVID WORDS AND ACTION VERBS

by Mary Quattlebaum

How might you encourage students (of any age) to attend to language?  To begin to delight in and revise for sound, rhythm and strong, active verbs, whether for poetry or prose?

Reading aloud and pointing out these qualities certainly helps.  One of my favorite books to explore is In the Spin of Things by Rebecca Kai Dotlich (Wordsong 2003).  Twenty-three poems about ordinary things like lawn mowers, ice cubes, and wind chimes revolve around sound and motion.  These poems encourage writers to focus closely on the world around them, whether it’s the “squish, squish, squeegee-squish” of windshield wipers, the “whittle and whirrs” of a pencil sharpener, or the twang, rap, and snap of a rubber band.

* Read aloud “Ode to a Washing Machine,” “Scissors” and “Soda Can.”

* Have students  jot down words or phrases that seem especially vivid and interesting.  Jot down sounds (onomatopoeia), alliteration, verbs, patterns of sounds (several words with long “o,” short “i,” etc.).  Share and discuss.  With verbs, substitute bland words for more active ones and ask students to describe the difference.

* As a group, choose something (fire truck, cake mixer) not in Dotlich’s book.  Have each child name a sound or action associated with that thing to create a group poem.

* Ask students to listen at home to their washing machine, a pair of scissors cutting, or a kicked soda can.  What sounds did they hear? Ask them to listen to two or three other things (toaster, shower, vacuum cleaner, etc.) and make a list of sounds they hear, descriptive words (color, shape, texture), and verbs and movements.

* Write a poem or short prose passage about this thing using some of the words on their list.  Do not try to rhyme. Have the poem or passage begin and end with a sound or movement.

* Read aloud.

www.maryquattlebaum.com

WHATEVER THE WEATHER WRITING FUN

by Ashley Alison Formento

You may visit exciting new places or spend time seeing family on summer vacation. Wherever you travel, you're bound to hear: "It's hot!" or "It's rainy." You might even hear, "It's August! Why is it so cool outside?" Something everyone in this world has in common is the weather. "A dark and stormy night" is a famous story beginning from a novel (Paul Clifford) written in the 1800's, and setting a scene using weather is no less important in fiction and non-fiction books today. Try these writing challenges anytime of the year for some weather writing fun.

Sizzling Summer

It's the hottest day on record. Write one page about the hottest day of the year without using the word "hot." It's harder than you think.

Brrrrr!

Icy, snowy, cold. Think about the coldest you've ever felt in your life. Write one paragraph to make readers shiver.

Falling Leaves

Whoosh, it's windy! Why do some leaves fall and others don't? Choose a tree in your yard or near your school. Can you find out what kind of tree it is? Do the leaves change and fall in the autumn? Write an autumn poem about this tree. 

Flower Shower

Spring, green, rain. What puts the bounce in spring for you? Do you splash in the puddles or avoid them? Do flowers make you smile or make you sneeze? It's the first day of spring and you're going to plant a garden. Write a description about this new spring day and details about what you're planting and why.

 http://alisonashleyformento.com/

SUMMER PICTURES: USING GOOGLE IMAGE AS A WRITING TOOL

by Jacqueline Jules

When I began writing my picture book, Picnic at Camp Shalom, I had a problem. For marketing reasons, my editor requested a summer camp setting. While I agreed that my story of friendship and misunderstandings would work well at a summer camp, I panicked.  My childhood memories of summer camp were dim, at best. Was there a way I could boost my recollection of an experience I had nearly 40 years ago?  Yes, there was! Google searches provided information on summer camp programs complete with pictures and testimonies. My research taught me that a swim test is a typical first day activity. This gave me my opening scene in which my protagonists, Carly and Sara, meet at the lake. Later, I read that scavenger hunts are popular for getting new campers acquainted with the grounds, giving me material for the second scene in the book.

While a random internet search may not be a good source for collecting facts for nonfiction writing, it can offer great assistance for developing descriptive details. Google Images provided just the picture I needed when trying to visualize the cabin Carly and Sara slept in. I often use Google images to prod me into better descriptions. Staring at a picture for a few minutes can  help me imagine my character’s surroundings.

Before you ask your students to write about their summer vacations, display pictures of beaches, swimming pools, fireworks, and other summer scenarios on your classroom screen. Talk about the sensory details these images evoke. What does the sand feel like between your toes? Did you see sand crabs disappearing into tiny holes? How did the water smell? Did the shiny pool rails gleam in the sun?  How would you describe the sound of people diving off the board? Could you compare it to anything else?

As a pre-writing activity, have your students study the details of displayed pictures and discuss ways of describing them. Figurative language requires thought. Giving your students a little time to visualize the scenes they plan to write about will enliven their writing.

 www,jacquelinejules.com

SNOW GLOBES AND GRAPHIC ORGANIZERS

by Jacqueline Jules

I remember the first time I was introduced to graphic organizers. It was a professional development day early in my teaching career, probably twenty years ago. The presenter in the workshop was so excited to share them. He gushed on about their usefulness in the classroom as if they were the best thing since sliced bread. I yawned. Freshly baked whole loaves are my preference and I have never personally used a graphic organizer. That doesn’t mean I forgo pre-writing. My writing always flows better after scribbling down some rough ideas before beginning a story or a poem. It’s the graphic organization of those ideas that made me uncomfortable. My brain doesn’t seem respond to connecting circles and boxes.

So I never used it in my own teaching, figuring my students couldn’t possibly be motivated by something that didn’t work for me personally. What an arrogant mistake!

Recently, two second grade teachers at the school where I work showed me the power of pre-writing with graphic organizers. They found a delightful lesson on Deanna Jump’s teaching blog about snowglobes. Each child not only created a snowglobe for the bulletin board, he or she wrote a story about what it would be like to live in a snowglobe.

When I read these second grade stories, I was blown away by the details the children included. They imagined the sensation of having their homes shaken up. They described snowflakes flickering down. Some imagined ways to break out of the snow globe to return to the real world. Others wrote about an idyllic life of sledding and hot cocoa. The stories were detailed and filled with sensory images.

“How did you do this?” I asked my two colleagues. “How did you get your second graders to write such descriptive and imaginative stories?”

The answer was pre-writing with graphic organizers. Before beginning their stories, the class discussed snow globes at length and the children were asked to fill out two sheets.

One sheet asked the students to fill in ideas of what it might be like to live in a snowglobe using an organizer from Valerie Noles' blog.

Another sheet asked the students to complete sentences. If I Lived in a Snow Globe, I would see…., I would hear …. , I would smell…, I would feel… from the First Grade Blue Skies blog  

This humbling experience not only convinced me that graphic organizers are useful teaching tools for pre-writing, it reminded me of all the wonderful resources teachers generously share on the internet. I am a little embarrassed I didn’t embrace organizers before, but sometimes, even the best of us, overlook good teaching practices.  

www.jacquelinejules.com

A SNOWY DAY

by Joan Waites

The weather here in the Mid-Atlantic is still relatively warm, and right now it’s raining, not snowing. But this time of year and the winter months to come are filled with the anticipation of waking up to a fresh blanket of snow and the news that school is closed for a snow day!

My favorite childhood book is The Snowy Day, written and illustrated by Erza Jack Keats. First published in 1962, it remains a classic. This simple, quiet story of a boy playing out in the snow recalls for me those long ago mornings in New York, when magic happened overnight, school was cancelled, and we had a whole day to build snowmen, snow forts, or skate on a frozen lake.

Using the book The Snowy Day as an example, have your students write about their perfect snow day.  How do they feel when they wake up to the streets being covered in snow? What are their plans? Do they rush outside or stay in reading a favorite book under the covers? What does the air smell like? What sounds do their boots make as they track through the snow? How can they describe what a snow covered tree looks like? Do they play alone like the character Peter in the book or do they make plans with friends? What sorts of adventures do they have in the snow? Even if your students live in warmer climates where they never see a snowflake, have them stretch their imaginations to describe what a snow day might be like.

Younger children can tell their story in pictures, and older ones can illustrate the story they have composed. Using construction paper and/or patterned scrapbook papers, have children make a cut-paper collage like the illustrations in The Snowy Day. Smaller details can be added with a black marker.

Mixing it up a little, have children write about an unusual character that finds him/herself in a snowy environment, or something/someone from a colder climate in warmer temps. What would happen if snowmen traveled to the beach? If an alligator crawled up a snow covered mountain? Lots can happen on a snowy…or un-snowy day.

Here’s wishing all our readers a wonderful Holiday Season, and a snow day or two in the coming winter months!

 www.joanwaites.com

OF MUFFIN TINS AND METAPHORS

by Mary Quattlebaum

Laura Krauss Melmed posted about having students write from what’s looming large in their lives at any given moment (“If You Elect Me” (11/12/12).  Her students had been big with feelings about the presidential election and Hurricane Sandy, and so they had yearned to write about these things.

What about a room that looms large?  Like the kitchen?  Acclaimed poet Naomi Shihab Nye offers a playful kitchen prompt in “Sifter,” from her book A Maze Me. http://www.tumblr.com/tagged/naomi-shihab-nye?before=1312629478.  I love this poem for the way it encourages writers to reveal themselves through an ordinary object and in its assumption that boys as well as girls are familiar with cookware. You might share Nye’s poem after students have written their pieces so that they are not unduly influenced by her example.

1.  The prompt is actually a quote the teacher in the poem:  “Become a kitchen implement in 2 descriptive paragraphs.”

2.  Ask students to close their eyes for a moment and call to mind what’s in their kitchens at home.

3.  Have them write their descriptions; share some aloud.

4.  Read Nye’s poem, and discuss what the teacher therein says:  “This is the beauty of metaphor.  It opens doors.”  What does she mean by saying that metaphor opens doors?  In what ways is the speaker of the poem like a sifter?  How is that metaphor a “door” into better understanding her?

These days the approaching holidays are much on people’s minds.  This prompt might help your students to deepen their writing around this topic so that it emerges as a nuanced exploration rather than just a wish or to-do list.

www.maryquattlebaum.com

THANKSGIVING FOOD FIGHT!

by Jacqueline Jules

At Thanksgiving time, many classrooms enjoy persuasive writing. A very popular writing prompt is the DON’T EAT ME letter where students take on the persona of a turkey trying to convince the farmer to spare him from the chopping block. Students have a blast explaining why they are too scrawny or tasteless to eat. Since these pleas are written in letter form to a fictional Farmer Brown, there is an opportunity to review proper letter form in the process.   

A variation on this theme would be to ask students to write dialogues between foods sitting on a Thanksgiving table. Each food could explain why it is important to the holiday meal and/or the favorite of the family sitting down to eat. Descriptions of foods always provide great opportunities to incorporate the five senses. Does the food crunch in your mouth? Does it have a particular texture or taste on your tongue? What does it smell like?

The conversations between the foods could be playful or serious. The cranberry sauce could argue with the green beans over who is the most colorful or nutritious. The turkey could be a big bully who makes the other foods cry until the crescent rolls decide to take a stand. Maybe the pumpkin pie has an argument with the pecan pie and all the foods pick sides. The possibilities for creative dialogue are endless and students may have great fun performing their finished pieces as Reader’s Theater. For tips on giving each character in a conversation a distinctive voice, check out Mary Quattlebaum’s post on Two-Person Dialogue poems.  

  

And of course, don’t miss this opportunity to review grammar rules for writing dialogue. Many students neglect to begin a new indented line for each speaker or put punctuation inside the quotation marks.

Finally, please note that I said students should write dialogues between foods on the Thanksgiving table, rather than traditional Thanksgiving foods. Many first generation immigrant families, like the character of Tuyet, in my Thanksgiving picture book, Duck for Turkey Day, serve a holiday meal native to their birth country rather than turkey and stuffing. Writing about holiday foods from other countries and sharing their descriptions could become a lesson on diversity in your classroom. We need to remember that not everyone celebrates Thanksgiving in the same way and too much emphasis on turkeys can be uncomfortable for some children. On this theme, I wrote a song about foods on the Thanksgiving table that you are welcome to share with your students. This song, “A Holiday for All,” is set to the tune of Shortin’ Bread. Maybe your students will want to create their own lyrics to a familiar tune in honor of Thanksgiving, too.

 www.jacquelinejules.com

COOKING UP SOME WRITING FUN

by Mary Quattlebaum

We’re now in that “season of mists and mellow fruitfulness,” so beautifully described by John Keats; and with pumpkins and Halloween candy highly visible, many a person’s fancy lightly turns to thoughts of food (to adapt Tennyson’s spring-time line to autumn).

Food is a great connector, joining people within and across time, regions, countries, and ethnicities.  Nothing can generate a spirited classroom or family discussion quicker than mention of a favorite (or detested) food.  I’ve done the following prompt with kids and adults alike.

Favorite Food

1.  Ask students to name their favorite food.

2.  Have them close their eyes and call to mind a time when they prepared or ate it.  With their eyes closed, have them focus on each of the five senses, one at a time:  What do they notice about this particular food, on their plate or in their hand?  Are there any particular sounds associated with this food or with the eating or preparing of it?  What about smells?  Taste?  Touch, as in the temperature of the food and the texture in the mouth?  Ask whether they are eating alone or with a group and what else they might notice about the setting or occasion.

3.  Have them open their eyes and write, using at least three of their five senses, and trying to give a sense of where and when the food was eaten.

4.  Share some descriptions with class.  For students writing about the same food, have class point out differences and similarities in descriptions.  Discuss how each person brings something different and unique to the description because each writer is unique and will notice different things/have different experiences to draw from.

Resources

Two helpful websites and their attendant blogs link food, children’s books and writing and education:

http://jamarattigan.com/ -- Jama’s Alphabet Soup, written by children’s author and foodie Jama Kim Rattigan, is self-described as “an eclectic feast of food, fiction and folderol.”  It’s a delightful feast, indeed, with recipes, writing reflections and interviews with children’s authors and illustrators.

http://jeanraiford.com/ -- Preschool Parfait, developed by preschool teacher Jean Raiford, provides seasonal activities and recipes that playfully enhance the early learning environment in reading, science, math and social and physical skills.

www.maryquattlebaum.com

ACTIONS SPEAK LOUDER THAN WORDS

by Pam Smallcomb

I remember when I decided to focus on my writing, and I attended my first SCBWI Writer’s Conference. It seemed to me that at each presentation, I was given this advice:

“Show, don’t tell.”

I looked around at my fellow attendees and saw them nodding sagely. In my head I was thinking, “What in the heck are they talking about?” Since I was obviously the only one who didn’t ‘get it,’ I sat quietly and hoped to break this super-secret code on my own some day.

Eventually, I figured out that what these writers and editors were saying was that the actions of your characters should reveal their character traits and flaws (not to mention the plot itself). But how do you check for ‘telling’ in your own work? One way is to take a close look at your adverbs and adjectives, and consider each one a candidate for the old axe.

For example, the sentence “She looked at the box carefully.” doesn’t really tell you how she went about examining the box, nor does it reveal anything about her character, her emotional state, or the plot.

Instead you could write, “Her hands shook as she turned the box over and over in her lap.”

This sentence could convey nervousness, or excitement, or even fear (depending on what is in that box!).

Another way to check your own work is to keep an eye out for the verbs ‘is’ and ‘are’ (and the past tenses ‘was’ and ‘were’).

For example:

“David is charming.”

How is he charming? Does he remember everyone’s birthday? Have a smile that can melt ice cream? Perform magic tricks spontaneously? How does his particular charm manifest itself?

In other words, if I were to watch David in action, what would he do that would cause me to think of him as charming? ‘Showing’ instead of ‘telling’ is what draws your reader into your story, and makes them bond to the characters. It allows your reader to become the character.  It forces the reader to watch the characters and deduce what their actions mean. It doesn’t spell everything out the way ‘telling’ does. It’s a less passive experience all around.

An exercise that students can do to help them see the difference is to first make a list of adverbs and adjectives, then write two sentences: one ‘telling’ and one ‘showing’.

Ex. Loudly:

I watched Rosi clap loudly when Ralph won first prize.

When they announced Ralph had won, I glanced at Rosi and covered my ears.

Ex. Grumpy:

Sid was pretty grumpy when I woke him up.

Sid slammed me in the side of the head with his pillow when I woke him up.

I recently watched the BBC version of Charles Dickens’ Little Dorrit. More importantly, I watched the characters. The actions and mannerisms of each character were unique: from the servant Flintwinch’s gruff behavior, to Amy Dorrit’s gentle and kind-hearted manner. You knew Amy Dorrit was kind-hearted not because everyone pointed to her and said, “Now there goes a kind-hearted girl!” but because Dickens shows us. He shows Amy saving part of her lunch to take back to her father in debtor’s prison. He shows her taking care of people. He doesn’t tell us to think of her as kind. We begin to think of her as kind, as we watch her actions.

When trying not to ‘tell’ your story you can remember the old adage, “Actions speak louder than words.”

http://www.pamsmallcomb.com/

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FROM WORRY TO WORDS

by Laura Melmed

In recent days we’ve viewed with horror and sympathy reports of the devastation caused by the earthquake and tsunami in Japan.  Heartrending images such as these and the ones from Haiti last year can be especially disturbing to children.  One way to deal with troubling emotions around such events is through writing.  

By its nature, poetry can tap into, synthesize, and give voice to strong feelings. Helping children describe a forceful act of nature in the form of poetry could be a cathartic exercise.  In a three part session, children can be guided to write poems using strongly descriptive language in a fresh, expressive way.  The goal here is to write in free verse, rather than following a prescribed structure or rhyming scheme which can sometimes rein in the free flow of ideas and emotions.

The exercise might begin with your reading aloud some poems about the power of natural phenomena. One example, found at http://www.poets.org/ is The Storm, by Theodore Roethke, a masterly evocation of a hurricane gathering force. Talk with the children about the poet’s use of imagery and his choice of verbs.  How does Roethke help the reader experience the buildup of tension that ultimately leads to the breaking of the storm?  At the same website, Negotiation with a Volcano, by Naomi Shihab Nye, offers an evocative example of personification, as the unnamed narrators, living in the shadow of a mighty volcano, beseech it not to erupt.

2.  The next part of the lesson is preparation for writing a group poem.  Tell the children that together you will be writing a poem about a powerful force of nature they have probably all experienced: a thunderstorm.  Have them think of words they associate with rain such as water, raindrops, pouring, teeming, streaming, drizzling, puddles, mud. Do the same with thunder and lightning.  Ask them to describe how rain smells, how it feels, how it sounds.  How does lightening look in the daytime; at night?  How does thunder sound when it is far away?  When it is near?  Think of synonyms for wet, such as damp, moist, drenched, and soaked.   Write the words on a White Board, Smart Board or large sheet of paper.  Next ask them to come up with as many adverbs as possible and write those down as well (one way to elicit a good variety of responses for this is to ask the children to name actions that can be performed by different parts of the body. Then have them add adverbs to describe those actions.) You can also throw as many color words as possible up on the board.  Now you are ready to write a poem!    

3.  In the final part of the exercise, you will guide the group in writing a group poem on another sheet of paper or board.  Tell the group to choose from the words they have come up with and combine them in interesting and unusual ways to express what happens during a thunderstorm.  The goal is to write a five line poem, but if the group is brimming with ideas, you can expand it. 

Make sure you convey that it will be necessary to cooperate, and that everyone’s input is to be respected.  Another stipulation is that in order to make the poem express the strong movement of the storm, the first three lines will begin with a verb. Now guide the children in composing the poem line by line, making sure they wrap it up with a zinger line at the end.  The children will be delighted with their finished product!

Follow-up activities could include writing individual poems about another powerful phenomenon such as an earthquake, a volcano, a waterfall, waves crashing against the shore, or a rushing river.  Or try an exercise about the quiet side of nature: a clear night sky, the coming of spring, morning in the country, a peaceful walk in the woods, or dusk. 

http://www.laurakraussmelmed.com/

PENCIL TIPS WRITING WORKSHOP: CREATING BELIEVABLE AND AUTHENTIC CHARACTERS

by Joan Waites

When presenting to students or adults about the art of picture book illustration, I’m often met with surprise when I describe the amount of research I do when working on any given project. “Don’t you just make it up in your head?” they ask. Oh, if only I could work that type of magic!

As you can see from the photo of my messy desk, taken at the very start of a new picture book project (due out in fall 2012), it is filled with art guidelines from the publisher, photographs, doodles, and even props. This particular book revolves around a main character who was a wealthy plantation owner, living in the 1700’s. But what did he look like? What did he wear? What did his home, his wife, his children and his plantation grounds look like? My job was to make the authors’ characters and story come to life on the page.

After reading the manuscript over and over again and collecting photographs, books on costume, hairstyles, food, and even pictures of children’s toys and plants that would be found at the time and location of the story, I began to develop a sense of who the main character was. His imagined facial features and body type, where he lived, and how he might have dressed was all incorporated into my preliminary sketches. Most often, I will also use live models to pose for me. Family, friends, and neighbors have all appeared and been turned into various characters in my books. Some illustrators have the opportunity to travel to a location to get a better sense of the story they will be illustrating, but of course that is not always possible. Surrounded by all the information on my desk, I can travel into the story and imagine myself there.

Whether the characters are actual historical figures or a fluffy bunny that lives in the meadow, giving the reader a sense of who that character is by written description or in the illustrations is essential. For example, the little bunny that lives in the meadow can be shy, fierce, or lazy. A shy little bunny might be described or shown wearing glasses hidden behind a tree with his nose in a book. The lazy bunny might be a bit overweight, snoozing in grass that is strewn with partially eaten carrots, while other bunnies are shown in the background going about their busy day.

Using these examples, have your students create a believable character using words or pictures. Older children can be assigned a true historical figure or someone fictitious who lived during a particular period in history. Younger students can use an imaginary character to describe and/ or illustrate. Have students collect photos from magazines or the internet, books and props that will give them a sense of who their character really is/was. Using a digital camera, students can also have their classmates dress up and pose for each other, using the printed photos as reference for their drawings.

Using some of these ideas among many others can be a great way to create believable and authentic characters that will come to life on the page!

http://www.joanwaites.com/

PENCIL TIPS: WRITING WITH THE FIVE SENSES

by Mary Quattlebaum

I don’t know what to write!  Have you heard this wail from your students?  The five-senses exercise gives them a fun and focused way to start.  I’ve done this exercise with all ages, from third graders to college students to adults.  It helps hone descriptive and revising skills.

Exercise:  Use the senses of sight, hearing, smell, taste, and touch (at least 3 of 5) to write a description of a place.

*  Before writing, have students first close their eyes and quietly picture this spot in their minds.  Go through each of the senses one by one, asking them “What do you see in this place … hear … smell … taste … touch?”  And finish by asking, “How does being in this place make you feel?”

*  Have them write, using at least 3 of their 5 senses in their description of this place. Descriptions should be relatively short (about 1 to 3 paragraphs long).

*  After writing a first draft, have students revise, encouraging them to use more descriptive words (“lush, green” grass rather than “pretty” grass, for example); more specific nouns and adjectives (what kind of bird or what color, for example), and stronger verbs (“run” or “skip” rather than “go,” for example).

Variations

For young people:  I often challenge them to describe a place outdoors that is special to them.  This helps them to focus on and perhaps better experience the natural world.  Otherwise you tend to get descriptions of bedrooms and malls.

For creative writers:  In addition to sharpening descriptive skills, the exercise can be a boon for creative writers trying to flesh out scenes and create a well-rounded world for their characters.  (I often do this exercise, trying to imagine the scene before writing/revising it.)  It’s endlessly interesting because you can apply it to places/scenes real and imagined, scary, tranquil, or chaotic.

For everyone:  Ours is a culture that gives and receives a lot of information through our sense of sight.  And our vocabularies tend to be sight-rich—with many fewer words dealing with taste and smell.  By being aware of and drawing upon all your five senses in your writing, you’ll often find yourself more alive to your senses in the real world.

 http://www.maryquattlebaum.com/