Resources

by Linda Morel

Genre(s): Fiction and Non Fiction

Grades: 2, 3, 4, and 5

Student needs: Gen Ed and Gifted & Talented

Common Core Learning Standards: (3) Write narratives to develop real or imagined experiences or events using effective technique and well chosen details.

Workshop Objective: Ask students to describe a place they know well—appealing to the five senses. What does this place look like, sound like, smell like, and feel like?

Guiding Questions:

What does it mean to be specific?

What is description?

What are the five senses?

What are exciting details that pay off versus drab information?

What is each author’s attitude toward her house and how does she show it?

Lesson:

Ask who knows what are the five senses? Go over: seeing, hearing, smelling, tasting, touching or feeling (including emotions).

Tell students they are going to describe a favorite place. When you describe a place, you want to use four senses but probably not taste.  (I explain that taste is hard to capture in describing a place. But when some students write, they take that as a challenge and weave in the smells and tastes they encounter in their kitchens or favorite restaurants.)

Ask students to listen as two descriptions of houses are read aloud. Listen for words or phrases where the authors appealed to the senses.

Excerpt from The House on Mango Street by Sandra Cisneros:

The house onMango Streetis not the way they told it at all. It’s small and red with tight steps in front and windows so small you’d think they were holding their breath. Bricks are crumbling in places, and the front door is so swollen you have to push hard to get in. There is no front yard, only four little elms the city planted by the curb. Out back is a small garage for the car we don’t own yet and a small yard that looks smaller between the two buildings on either side. There are stairs in our house but they’re ordinary hallway stairs, and the house has only one washroom. Everybody has to share a bedroom—Mama and Papa, Carlos and Kiki, me and Nenny.

Excerpt from One Writer’s Beginnings by Eudora Welty:

In our house on North Congress Street in Jackson,Mississippi, where I was born in 1909, we grew up to the striking of clocks. There was a mission-style oak grandfather clock standing in the hall, which sent its gong-like strokes through the living room, dining room, kitchen, pantry, and up the sounding board stairwell. Through the night, it could find its way into our ears; sometimes even on the sleeping porch, midnight could wake us. My parents’ bedroom had a smaller striking clock that answered it.

Ask students: What are some of the words or phrases that appealed to the senses?

Point out how the writers chose details that are exciting and paid off—the door was so swollen it wouldn’t close; the house was small and felt smaller still by houses on each side.

Ask students if the writers liked the houses they described? How do you know?

Brainstorm: Ask students to describe their classroom. What do they see, hear, smell, touch/feel? Be specific. Point out which details are exciting and pay off, such as the loud speaker blaring announcements. Which details are less important to getting a sense of the room, such as the colors on the map.

Ask students: What is a place you may want to describe? It doesn’t have to be your whole home; it could be just one room—your room. It could be the park where you play ball; the gym, the cafeteria, the bus, your grandmother’s kitchen, etc.

Ask students to describe a place they know well. Be specific. Use as many of your senses as possible.

Toward the end of the period, give students an opportunity to read their work aloud.

This lesson plan can be complete in itself, especially for first through third graders. With older students, I ask them to use the place they’ve described as a setting for a story.  To read a lesson plan that guides students through description of place as a story setting go here. 

-Linda Morel

Linda Morel is a nonfiction writer and T&W teaching artist.  You can read more about Linda here.

For a sample of student writing that came out of this exercise, go here.  Continue to check out our tumblr page at teachersandwriters.tumblr.com for more student writing from Linda's residency, as well as other student writing from other T&W writers' residencies, too!