One of the first parts of our students' writing on which we work is their ability to describe what they see. We want our student-writers to paint pictures with their descriptions, so that their readers will be able to see what the writers want them to see. We would like this descriptive ability to convey things the writers perceive with any of their senses.

To help our kids develop their descriptive abilities, we read them excerpts from O'Neill's classic HAILSTONES AND HALIBUT BONES, and from THE GREAT BLUENESS. We want them to start looking at things with "the eye of the writer," so that a sky isn't just blue, but "a light robin's-egg blue, in which the stark clouds puff out their chests with pride." We want them to imbue the wind with the qualities that it carries through the treetops, so that their readers will be able to appreciate the difference between a "whispery rustling of the branches" and an "insistent tugging at your concentration on an otherwise-picturesque day." As a writer, they have these pictures in place when they sit down to write the piece, but will their readers have similar pictures when they get up from reading the piece?

We take a walk outside, armed with pencils, clipboards, and eyes opened to possibilities. We stop at a variety of locations on our campus that offer rich sensory impressions. We ask our students to focus on one particular scene, thing to touch, sound, or smell. Each student must then describe that scene or item as clearly and richly as he or she can. We have already introduced three literary devices: similes, metaphors, and personification, and encourage the students to use them, if they seem appropriate. In the next few days we read their descriptions aloud in class. Some are absolutely amazing. Other times, students hear their peers' descriptions, and ask whether they can have an extra night "to look at [x location] again." The answer is always "yes." They're asking to be allowed to improve their writing; how could the answer be "no?"

The students write what we call "descriptive locations," developing sensory "pictures" of three places on campus and at least two in or around their homes.

After we've played with other opportunities to use their descriptive powers in classes, we ask them to picture a place or an item that they know very well. We ask them to call it to mind, then to hold it there and look at it through their descriptive lenses. The students are then to describe this place or this thing without telling a story about it. They are to write a descriptive essay, bringing this place or thing into sharp focus for their readers.

Some of these descriptive essays are absolutely wonderful pieces of writing. Our goal is for this descriptive ability to become one of their tools as writers.

Your comments and input would be greatly appreciated. Please send all comments to Mark Stephens, teacher of English/History, for Germantown Academy Middle School, Fort Washington, Pa.

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October, 2002