DESCRIPTION PATTERN OF EXPOSITION AP LANG

Describing places with tactile images:  …with tactile imagery:  The steamy closeness of the Brazilian jungle:

Describe places with visual images:  The gray stone, narrow streets, tall houses and church spires of n Eastern European city: Warsaw

Describe places with auditory images:  “The one-lungers throbbed and fluttered, and the twin-cylinder ones purred and purred, and that was a quiet sound, too.” (EB White remembering outboard motors on his lake vacations)

Describing places with gustatory images:  “There’s a sunny corner in the kitchen where I always ate my toast—grilled in the oven, sometimes with cinnamon sugar and sometimes jam, but always the way my mother made it, buttered on both sides.” (Joyce Maynard’s house)

Describe places with olfactory images:  The acrid smell of a wood fire penetrated every inch of our campsite.

You can create portraits of:  People  Qualities  Emotions  Moods

Create portraits of people through Description:  “The victim is in good shape. He shivers slightly, although the trauma room is exceedingly warm. His face is bloodied, but shows no major lacerations. A third nurse…asks the man a series of questions…he answers abruptly. He is drunk.” (-George Simpson describing a patient at Bellevue ER)

Describe the qualities of freedom:  How does this cartoonist describe freedom?  What qualities of freedom is he implying if any?

Describe freedom’s qualities as depicted in this image:

What are the qualities of a ghost town you would use in a description?

Describe an emotion:  What effects does anger have on behavior? (red face, clenched fists, teeth bared, eyebrows drawn together, stiffened body, etc)

Describe a mood:  Rejoicing: arms up and out, hands open, legs apart, head up, eyes on the sky, or maybe closed.

Another mood to describe:  Sad:

When you use Description:  Remember your purpose  Remember your audience  Is the ‘picture’ you are ‘painting’ the most effective picture for your purpose and your audience?

Descriptive writing follows one of two strategies:  In objective description, you aim at conveying detains of a subject thoroughly and accurately without suggesting your feelings or biases and without trying to evoke an emotional response from your readers.  In subjective description, you make your values and feelings clear and often encourage readers to respond emotionally.

DOMINANT IMPRESSION:  Successful subjective descriptions generally focus on a single dominant impression, which can act in place of a conclusions or thesis.  To create a Dominant Impression, you select those details that will help create a mood or atmosphere or emphasize a feature or quality.

DEVELOPING YOUR DESCRIPTION:  For scenes or objects:  What does it look like (colors, shapes, height, depth?)  What does it sound like? (loud, soft, rasping, soothing, musical, like a lawn mower)?  What does it smell like? (smoky, acrid, like gasoline, like soap, like a wood fire?)  What does it feel like? (smooth, sticky, like a cat’s fur, like spider’s web, like grease?)  What does it taste like? (bitter, salty, like grass, like feathers?)

DEVELOPING YOUR DESCRIPTION:  For emotions or ideas:  What effect does it have on behavior (anger: red face, abrupt gestures?)  What is it like (freedom: like taking a deep breath of air after leaving a smoky room?)

DEVELOPING YOUR DESCRIPTION:  For people:  What does the person look like (hair neatly combed, rumpled blouse, muddy boots?)  What are some characteristic behaviors (rubs hands on skirt, picks ears?)  What has the person done or said (cheated on a chem test, said cruel things to their teacher,  ?)  How do others respond to the person (turn to her for advice, call him a ‘slob’?)