Breathing Life into your Writing… One Sense at a Time

“SHOW, NOT TELL” What in the world does this mean when a teacher asks you to do this in your writing?

Example: Mrs. Batchelor is celebrating.

SENSORY DETAILS: Descriptive words relating to taste, touch, smell, sight, hear See if you can spot sensory details in the following passage…

From The Hunger Games “I reach Glimmer just as the cannon fires. The tracker jackers have vanished. This girl, so breathtakingly beautiful in her golden dress the night of the interviews, is unrecognizable. Her features eradicated, her limbs three times their normal size. The stinger lumps have begun to explode, spewing putrid green liquid around her. I have to break several of what used to be her fingers with a stone to free the bow. The sheath of arrows is pinned under her back. I try to roll over her body by pulling on one arm, but the flesh disintegrates in my hands and I fall back on the ground” (Collins, 2008, p. 192).

Today’s Writing Accomplishment: We’re going to work on creating a story using the 5 senses.

STEP 1: Bag O’Senses Directions: Please open the bag and remove the contents, placing them in the center of your table. Inside your bag are various items representing the five senses: postcards of art/locations and pictures = sight fabric cloth squares of varying tactile experiences = touch lotions/hand sanitizers = smell hard candies = taste Music = hear Greece, New Orleans, Mexico, Maui, The Congo, swing, jazz, classical

FOCUS Notice how you gravitate toward a few items and experience them with one or many senses. Let this trigger a creative story in your mind. What is physically happening in your story? Use concrete details. Refer to your five senses. Write for 11 minutes and 23 seconds.

STEP 2: Barney’s Motto – “Sharing is caring!” Share your writing at your table. Group members, your job is to 1) listen and then 2) ask questions about this story. Help the writer develop more background ideas to expand the story.

5 Sense-Check Red = Sight Blue = Hearing Orange = Smell Green = Touch Purple = Taste Directions: Read through your writing, underlining the specific details with the color that corresponds to the appropriate sense. Example: A detail about chocolate chip cookies baking in the oven would be underlined in orange because it appeals to the sense of smell, while a detail about the melted chocolate chips in someone’s mouth would be underlined in purple. When you are finished, you may notice that your paper is heavily slanted toward the color that corresponds to sight. Spend about 5-10 minutes now expanding on the other sensory details in your writing. Make details in the margins of your writing that you’d like to add.

YOU JUST REVISED YOUR WRITING!