1. Memoir: Language and word choice
Sensory details and figurative language

2. Objectives
Demonstrate understanding of descriptive writing by applying characterization, sensory detail, and comparison/analogy techniques to the memoir rough draft.

3. Directions Open your Writer’s Notebook to the minilessons section.
Title the first blank page Language and Word Choice.
List this titled entry in your table of contents.
Take notes during the presentation.
Remember, you don’t have to write every word. Just make sure you get the main idea.

4. What are sensory details?
Descriptive detail that allows the reader to experience your memories
Experiencing life through the five senses
Taste, touch, smell, sight, and hearing
Use adjectives and adverbs frequently
Words that describe nouns and verbs
What words describe the desk?
What words describe walking?

5. Why use sensory detail?
“Look. Your reader is a bored, tired little person, maybe sitting at a bus stop. Take care of them. Transport them. Let them smell your mom's coffee, let them see the ugly flowers on that dress you had to wear on the first day of Sunday School” (Cara McDonald).
“You don't tell your reader that it's rainy, because they won't care. They won't identify. You have to make them care through speaking to their senses. We perceive the world through our senses” (Mary Kate Perry).
It is important to remember that human beings learn about the world through using the five senses. They are our primary source of knowledge about the world. Therefore, writing which incorporates vivid, sensory detail is more likely to engage and effect the reader.

6. Let’s give it a try!
With your partner, write about one of the following sentences using vivid, in-depth details to provide your readers with a clear picture of the scene.
Writer’s secret – use the thesaurus!
The library wasn’t well stocked
These students need some sort of discipline
His clothing was old and worn
Share? What did you like?

7. Example without sensory detail
Grandmother Workman reached over and grabbed her grandson's arm. He was nervous because the staircase was so steep, but she leaned against him and they began to climb.
What is this missing? How do you feel about the passage?

8. Example with sensory detail
Gandmother Workman lurched over and grabbed the pale skin of Randal's thin forearm with her leathery hand. The folds and creases beneath her skin coiled themselves out like electrical wiring, like the bloated, roughly-textured relief map of the world that his mother just posted above his bedside table. Randal looked ahead toward the winding spiral staircase, fidgeted with a small hole in his baseball jersey, and bit his lip. His mouth filled with the sweet, coppery taste of blood as she leaned in closely toward him, breathing her hot breath on the damp hair at the base of his neck. She smelled of wet cigarettes and bacon. As they slowly climbed the long, steep staircase, the only sound was his grandmothers' labored breathing and the mournful creak of the wooden stairs.

9. Characterization
Characterization refers to the process of describing the appearance, action, and thoughts of the persons discussed within a text.
In order to create realistic characters, a writer should be certain to give each person within the text:
a unique way of behaving
a unique way of speaking
a unique appearance
a unique was of thinking

10. Show Don’t Tell
Telling a story does not appeal to the reader’s imagination.
John was angry
Showing a story provides descriptive detail so the reader can “see.”
How was he behaving? How do we know he is angry? What does he look like?

11. Let’s give it a try! Together, let’s pick a character and an emotion.
Show this scene with descriptive details.
What does the character look like? Sitting or standing? Hand movement? Facial expression (mouth, eyes, eyebrows)? Head movement? How is the character expressing the emotion?

12. Using Comparisons
Simile – compares 2 unlike things using “like” or “as.”
His temper was explosive like a volcano.
She moved like a whisper.
Analogy – shows similarities between 2 things or ideas.
Just as sword is the weapon of a warrior, pen is the weapon of a writer. – How is a pen a weapon?
What a note is to a singer, a word is to a writer. How are music notes and written words similar?
Why use comparisons?
Helps readers visualize something they may not have experienced before.

13. Writing your own analogies
Turn to your Quick Writes section and title the next blank page Writing is Like Vomiting: Working with Comparisons.
Use the following sentence stems to write your own analogies. Remember, they can be longer than one sentence.
I feel like.... (rain, dirt, a king, an athlete, night, a gladiator)
My life is like... (a circus, a hurricane, a shipwreck)
Life is like... (an onion, a play, a journey, a building)
School is like.... (a baby, a shark, a prison, an island)

14. Adding Description to your Memoir
Take out your memoir rough draft and add the following descriptions:
Use sensory details to describe at least one scene or situation.
Use what you learned about characterization to show the reader about a character in your memoir.
Add one comparison or analogy.
Note: Each addition should be several sentences. Use a numbering system in your draft and make thee additions on a separate sheet of paper.