What did the dish smell like? Taste like? Look like? When was it made? How did it make you feel then? What was the atmosphere when everyone ate it? Was sunlight streaming into the room? What were the people, sounds and smells and objects around you? Was it a relaxed or a tense meal? Why?
Activity #2 Video on Descriptive Writing
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1PoKA8Dv5dE
Activity #3
Discuss Chapter 7 on Description (page 165)
Descriptive Writing -- The primary purpose of descriptive writing is to describe a person, place or thing in such a way that a picture is formed in the reader's mind. Capturing an event through descriptive writing involves paying close attention to the details by using all of your five senses.
Collect Active Reading Outline for Chapter 7
Activity #4
In-class Writing Prompt -- Using all of your senses, or as many as possible, spend the remaining time writing about the house you grew up in (one- to two-pages).
Describe it in intimate detail — the floorboards that creaked, the drying clothes dancing on the clothes-line that looked like ghosts at night, the broken window the wind whistled through, the cupboard you were convinced secreted a jungle of monsters, the paint you dropped that could not be washed away, the water tank where Dad twisted his ankle, the bees buzzing around the mango tree, the cool cement under your feet, how the carpet felt where you lay and read, the sounds you woke up to. What sounds did you hate? What did you love? How did you feel every morning? Why?
Describe it all, however dull it sounds. We all have stories sleeping in our memories, all you have to do is creep down into the darkness and find them.
"As the house was built into a hilltop slope, the ceiling over these steps was quite low; so if, standing in the tall, narrow hall at the foot of the back stairs, you flung open the door to the basement and started boldly down, you hit your head on the beam. King Somebody of Scotland was killed hitting his head on a beam. My father told us this as a solemn warning, and put marks in white paint on the lintel, which he repainted every decade or so. We all crouched when we started down to the basement. I myself grew tall enough only to scrape the top of my head occasionally on the murderous beam, but whenever I opened the door I thought about the King of Scotland." Ursula Le Guin
For Homework
Read and annotate "Beauty" by Alice Walker
Complete Active Reading Outline for "Beauty"
Beauty
Bring two copies of your narrative to class for peer review!
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