Chapter 10. Descriptive Writing

This chapter explores the descriptive writing, its techniques, and how to teach them. The techniques are adding specific information, choosing words carefully, creating sensory images, making comparisons, and writing dialogue (Tomkins, 2008) “Descriptive writing is painting pictures with words” (p.221). Descriptive writing is one of the most important skills you can teach to students. By thinking about what details make a description come alive, students will improve their writing and observational skills. Lewis deals with step5, one of effective step is “Use Visualization to Make a Point”,” Explain to your students that the point of writing is to make your reader see the same exact picture that you had in your head when you wrote the words” (Lewis, 2010) it should be valuable to teach alternative and vivid words of English to the students.

According to Alchemical Park, “Students should learn descriptive techniques to use proficiently them in writing.” I am of the same opinion with this point; the general characteristics of descriptive writing include: elaborate use of sensory language and rich, vivid, and lively detail. Descriptive Writing’s goal is to improve students' writing by incorporating photography into descriptive and narrative writing exercises. Teachers should help guide them with enough examples for students to improve descriptive writing skills through writing exercises.

References  

Tompkins, G.E. (2008). Teaching writing: Balancing process and product. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson.

Lewis, B (2010). How to Kick It Up a Notch. About.com Media Inc. Retrieved from

http://k6educators.about.com/cs/languageartswr/a/kickitupanotch.htm