Imagery and Descriptive Language

On a clean page in your Writer’s Notebook, write today’s date and label the page, “Imagery and Descriptive Language”

Inspirational Quote “Think of yourself as a focusing a camera lense as you write, always striving to make the picture clearer, sharper, more detailed.” -Martin Espada What does this quote mean as a poet?

Teaching Point: Poets observe the world around and write about the small daily events and the stories that suggest ideas and stories.

Example #1: Winter Bus Stop We are waiting for the bus in the cold winter morning. It is freezing. We are bundled up and shivering. Finally, the bus arrives, and we are relieved to get out of the cold.

Example #2: Winter Bus Stop The naked winter trees line the avenue. Our breath rises in visible puffs to join the darkened clouded night sky. There is a freezing chill in the air that brings crispness to the leaves, jewelled with frost, that crunch underfoot. Rosy cheeked, we stamp to keep warm, pulling woollen hats over our reddened ears and tightening scarves over our blue-tinged lips. Teeth chatter and the cold seeps into our gloves numbing our fingers until they cease to bend properly, stiffened and frigid. Suddenly the illuminated sign on the bus appears, trundling slowly down the icy black road and we raise our arms to hail it.

Imagery Definition: Using the five senses (taste, touch, sight, smell, and sound) to take the reader to the place and show the reader the situation instead of just telling him about it. ****Be sure to copy the five senses into your writer’s notebook so that you can refer to them later.

Good Imagery Good IMAGERY uses the five of the senses to create an overall impression of what it describes. It should transport the reader to the scene. It does NOT tell what it looks like, tastes like, feels like, smells like, or sounds like, but rather describes each of those senses.

Imagery Practice Use your vivid verb list and descriptive adjective list to make the sentences you were provided with more detailed and interesting.

Imagery Poems: Identify Imagery and Figurative Language “Summer” by Walter Dean Meyers   I like hot days, hot days Sweat is what you got days Bugs buzzin from cousin to cousin Juices dripping Running and ripping Birds peeping Old men sleeping Lazy days, daisies lay Beaming and dreaming Of hot days, hot days

This Is Just to Say I have eaten  the plums  that were in  the icebox  and which  you were probably  saving  for breakfast  Forgive me  they were delicious  so sweet  and so cold 

BLACKBERRY EATING I love to go out in late September among the fat, overripe, icy, black blackberries to eat blackberries for breakfast, the stalks very prickly, a penalty they earn for knowing the black art of blackberry-making; and as I stand among them lifting the stalks to my mouth, the ripest berries fall almost unbidden to my tongue, as words sometimes do, certain peculiar words like strengths and squinched, many-lettered, on-syllabled lumps, which I squeeze, squinch open, and splurge well in the silent, startled, icy, black language of blackberry-eating in late September.

Independent Practice: Read the remaining poems on your handout, identifying as much imagery and figurative language as you can. Underline and label your examples!