CHARACTERISTICS OF DESCRIPTIVE ESSAYSfrom Seeing the Pattern 146-150

Uses Sensory Details• Sight• Sound• Smell• Taste• Touch

Try to use a variety of senses in your writing.

Sentences Come Alive

Active Verbs

Use active verbs rather than adverbs to create “striking and lasting impressions” (148).

What is the effect of the revision on the reader’s understanding of the event?

Examples

The team captain proudly accepted the award.

The team captain marched to the podium, grasped the trophy, and gestured toward his teammates.

Dominant Impression• Overall attitude, mood, or feeling about the subject• Implied thesis of the descriptive essay• This is your point—define it clearly

Connotative Language• Words have subtle variations in meaning

• Select words that strengthen your dominant impression.

Skinny Svelte Slim Scrawny

Cellar Basement

Uses Comparison

Simile

Biting into a tabasco pepper is like aiming a flame-thrower at your parted lips

Metaphor

Eating chili peppers is a descent into a fiery hell.

Uses Comparison

Personification

The television screen stared back at me.

Methods of Organization

Spatial

Front Back Middle

Behind Between To the left

Next to Above Below

Near Far away North

South East West

Chronological

First Next Then

Before After Later

Methods of Organization

Least to Most Most to Least

Vantage Point• The vantage point is like

your perspective in the piece. Think of it as a camera for the reader. • Fixed: Stays in one place.• Moving: Moves from place

to place.

• Choose a vantage point that feels appropriate to your purpose. • What vantage point(s)

will give your reader the most useful information?

• From which vantage point(s) can you provide the most revealing or striking details?

p. 151

Brainstorm• Look at the prompt for the essay.• For each noun in the chart, brainstorm five topics.• You will use this list to help you come up with an idea for

your descriptive essay.

“Eating Chilli Peppers” pp. 144-146 Read the sample carefully.• What is the dominant impression?• What is the vantage point?• What method of organization does the author use? • What language appears to be particularly effective?