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Types of writing 1: Description. By 陈烽. Observation activity. All the girls:. `. All the boys:. What do you see? Who sees a young woman ? Who sees an old woman ?. Observation. Sight see, look, watch Hearing hear, listen, overhear
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Observation activity All the girls:
What do you see? Who sees a young woman? Who sees an old woman?
Observation • Sight see, look, watch • Hearing hear, listen, overhear • Smell smell, sniff, inhale • Taste taste, try, eat, drink, • Touch touch, feel
Describe what you observefrom your five senses:---Sight ---Hearing ---Smell ---Taste ---Touch
“Details sell the story” • Mark Twain: • “Show, don’t tell.” • This means write aboutless, but write more.
tell what you see, hear, smell, taste and touch the abstract names of your feelings show what you see, hear, smell, taste, and touch the feelings of your body Differences between information and description
information and description • Rick had drunk five glasses of whiskey. He was driving in his car. He was listening to a song. The song started to get faster and faster. Rick also started to drive faster and faster. He was thinking about having lost his job.
information and description • “I’m as free as a bird now.” Rick remembered his boss shouting at him in the morning. The guitars in his ears started to strum with more speed and excitement. Starting to feel the confidence of the song—and of the five shots of whiskey from earlier—he put a little more weight on the gas.
More examples • information • I felt very tired. • description • My eyelids felt like they had weights attached to them. The teacher’s voice started to sound like a radio played in the distance—even though she was talking to me.
information • I was so angry. • description • I started to feel hot. My fingers felt stiff and, when I looked down, I saw that I had rolled both hands into fists.
information • I loved her very much. • description • I would often imagine talking to her. I would wake up in the middle of the night, thinking she was next to me. Sometimes, I felt my feet want to walk toward her.
information • I was very happy. • description • I started to feel warm. My shoulders felt loose. I stood up easily, smiled at the others, and said goodbye in a cheerful voice.
Description • Descriptive---to describe… • A person • A place • An object • A scene
A person • In an essay you might give your reader a detailed, physically vivid account of a person. • not only to give details of one’s appearance • but also to reveal one’s character, one’s thoughts and one’s feelings • Peculiarities and special quality of a person impress the reader deeply.
Description of a person Alex was his worn, dirty blue sweater. One didn’t see him without it, even in hot weather. The food stains would appear one by one, to be removed all at once in a week’s time, only to reappear in different shapes, colors, and places.
A place • In an essay you might describe a place • for its own sake, such as a scenic place • for revealing • the personality of a person • creating a feeling or mood…
Description of a place The living room looked like a hospital waiting room. I could almost smell the bleach and the medicine. From the shiny wood, shiny metal, shiny white walls, from the right angles of the pillows to the right angles of the papers, from the untouched CDs, the carefully placed TV remote, rigidly parallel to the DVD remote—I could see that the Smiths lived in a state of sterility.
An object • In an essay you might describe an object • by covering its: size, shape, color, smell, taste, texture, use, relation, and so on • stressing one aspect only, not all features
Description of an object I loved the “Winnie the Pooh” watch I had when I was a kid. The face of the watch had a dark blue background, with white stars, and showed Winnie the Pooh in his familiar red shirt over his honey-colored fur. Winnie was over to the side of the watch a little, and it looked like he was holding the hour, minute, and second hands in the palm of his own hand. There was a little bee on the tip of the second hand, and it seemed to fly all the way around the face of the watch every minute.
A scene • In an essay you might describe a scene by visualizing • the setting • the people • the actions • stressing the most remarkable only , not all the details • the spectacular impresses the reader deeply
Description of a scene On one side, she saw the angry mother. “Not usually angry,” she thought. “What’s that she’s holding?” The words in her head received answers as she saw the filthy iron frying pan in the mother’s raised and shaking hand. The floor seemed shaking, and she looked longingly toward the open window.
A) Your first time asking sb. to go on a date Situation: You have a piece of paper with a girl’s/boy’s phone number written on it. The girl/boy gave you this number a few days ago and asked you to call her/him sometime. Now is that time. You dial the number and hear her/him answer the phone. Duration: 30 seconds; from the moment you stop staring at the paper and decide to call this girl/boy, the moments you spend dialing the number, the pause before the call connects, the moment you hear the phone picked up, “hello?”, the moment you say who you are, a pause, to the moment he/she says the first word in reply to you.
B) Your first time making a big speech in public Situation: You have a topic, and have prepared a speech. Because you are a busy student, you didn’t prepare so well. You know that, if you are confident, you will speak well; but if you are not confident, you will embarrass yourself. You are standing in the middle of a stage, with many faces looking at you, waiting for you to say something. Duration: 30 seconds; from the moment the previous speaker says their last words, the moments the people in the room clap for that person, the moments you spend walking up to the place on the stage where you will stand to speak, the moment you look around, the moment you check your paper and notice that it looks a little different from when you were preparing, the moment you look around again at all the faces looking at you, to the moment the first few words come out of your mouth.
