1. English Language Arts Level 7 #34 Ms. Walker

2. Today’s Objectives Writing – The Descriptive Paragraph Clichés
Idiom of the Day

3. Part 1- What is Descriptive Writing?
Descriptive writing uses sensory images to describe what the writer sees, hears, smells, touches, and tastes. It paints a clear description of people, places, objects, or events.

4. Descriptive Writing Key Word Prompts
Describe your bedroom. Imagine telling someone who has never visited you.
YOU MUST DESCRIBE OR TELL WHAT A PERSON CAN SEE, HEAR, SMELL, TASTE OR FEEL.

5. What are Descriptions?
Descriptions are words that give the listener or reader some idea of how something looks, sounds, smells, tastes, or feels.

6. Write a Description
Your goal as a writer is to describe something so well that your reader will see, in his or her imagination, what you have experienced!

7. Important things to remember about details
Sensory details help readers re-create your experiences in their imagination. Sensory details are words capturing the look, smell, sound, feel, or taste of things.

8. Sensory Details
Sensory details aren’t limited to bare appearances. Using comparisons and figurative language can also create descriptive, sensory images!

9. Descriptive Writing
9:59

10. Descriptive Writing
Descriptive writing describes an object, place, or person in a way that creates a vivid impression in the reader's mind, enabling the reader to visualize what or who is being described.

11. Show!
Don’t Tell.

12. Descriptive Writing
Details should go beyond the general. For instance, “The house was big and nice.” Details should enable the reader to picture or relate to what the writer is describing.

13. Descriptive Writing
Rather than: The house was big and nice; Sensory details elaborate, such as: The massive brick structure sprawled across a quarter acre of ground and rose more than sixty feet into the air.

14. Descriptive Writing
No matter how the description is used, students should: -include plenty of details; -use figurative language; -organize details; -show, not tell;

15. Purpose of Descriptive Writing
It describes something in an original and unique way so that it appeals to the five senses:
Touch
Taste
Sight
Hear
Smell

16. Touch
Rather than write: “The pillow was soft.” Write: “The fluffy pillow swelled with soft down and ample cotton bolstering.”

17. Taste
Rather than write: “The pizza tasted good.” Write: “The hot bubbly cheese with warm Italian pepperoni was a special delight.”

18. Hear
Rather than write: “I heard the bird chirp.” Write: The bird emitted a long and languorous melody.”

19. Smell
Rather than write: “The perfume smelled nice.” Write: The fragrance was a mix of robust lavender and a hint of lemon citrus.

20. Sight
Rather than Write: “Tom looked sick.” Write: “Tom’s sunken yellow eyes and pallid, sallow skin indicated an illness.”

21. Part 2 - Clichés: The Descriptive Killer
Clichés are overused and overworked words and phrases that you hear all the time. “Whatever” is a cliché. Don’t use it.

22. Avoid Clichés
“Her face was as red as a beet.” is another example of an overused cliché. If you have heard it, or seen it in print, it’s probably a cliché.

23. Finding Cliché’s
You’ve heard it before, but not often. Is it a cliché? One of the best places to look: Cliché finder

24. Some idioms are cliché’s.
Use them with caution!

25. Assignment
Using the Sensory Details Worksheet, describe your favorite holiday. Include why the holiday is celebrated. Describe some of the tastes, sights and sounds that accompany the holiday.

26. Sensory Observation Chart
Directions: State your topic. Then, list what you have observed through your senses in the appropriate areas.
Name Date Class Period
Topic
Favorite Holiday
Sight Sound Touch Taste Smell
Copyright 2012 by Chad Manis, Teacher-Written &duware'DailyTeachingTools.com

27. Break

28. Part 3 - The Idiom
Idioms are spoken phrases that cannot be found in the dictionary. An idiom is an expression that means something other than the literal meanings of its individual words.

29. Rip Off
Rip off means to cheat or rob someone or something. Example usage: That game on the internet was a rip off. I paid good money to play and I didn’t win one game.

30. Rip Off
That auto repairman tried to rip me off by charging me too much money for the job. Rip off or rip me off are phrases that mean someone has tried to or succeeded in cheating or robbing you.

31. Lesson Review
Our lesson today centered on descriptive writing that appeals to the five senses. We learned that it is better to ”show,” rather than to tell. Our idiom of the day was “rip off.”

32. Next Lesson
In our next lesson we will discuss the expository paragraph. Expository paragraphs and essays usually explain a process.