Writing WorkshopDescriptive Writing: Descriptive Essay

Assignment: Describe something you have observed. (Your audience is your teacher and your classmates.)

Descriptive Essay: Assignment

A good descriptive essay is rich in details that appeal to readers’ senses. Your goal is to suggest a mood or to create a strong impression of what you have observed.

Descriptive Essay: Prewriting

Choosing a Subject

Finding More Ideas

Gathering Details

Organizing

Assignment

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What have you seen lately that interested—or even amazed—you?

Descriptive WritingPrewriting: Choosing a Subject

a surprising act an odd animala colorful sunset

Your essay will recreate a subject—a person, animal, object, place, or experience—through detailed description.

These questions will help you decide whether you can describe a subject clearly enough to write about it.

1. Can I observe the subject directly? If not, can I recall the subject clearly enough to describe it vividly?

2. Do I find the subject interesting? Will it interest readers?

3. Does the subject involve enough sensory details for a good description?

Descriptive EssayPrewriting: Choosing a Subject

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Descriptive EssayPrewriting: Finding More Ideas

To explore subjects you could write about, freewrite on some of these topics.

What activities could I observe?

What people could I observe?

What animals could I observe?

To explore subjects you could write about, freewrite on some of these topics.

What places and things could I observe?

What events could I observe?

Descriptive EssayPrewriting: Gathering Details

Once you have chosen your subject, gather details about it by observing it directly or by drawing on memories. A chart may help you think of details.

Descriptive EssayPrewriting: Gathering Details

Sensory Detailssee coconut trees

hear airplane, waves

feel sun, hot air

smell salt water

taste mango

EventsDragonflies flutter and glide, trucks haul tons of dirt, ferries race by

Impressions

This is just the place for me.

Good descriptions use more than simple observation or recollection. Use figures of speech to add color to your essay and help your readers experience your subject.

Descriptive EssayPrewriting: Gathering Details

The sun left like a ship slipping behind the horizon, sails shining, carrying the warm weight of a perfect day by the river.

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There are three common ways to organize a descriptive essay.

1. Spatial order. Describe details according to location—near to far, left to right, or clockwise, for example.

Reeds whispered by the river, while herons stalked frogs on the far shore. Over the sounds of flowing water, I heard the distant noise of the highway. [near to far]

Descriptive EssayPrewriting: Organizing

The river reflected the sunset’s colors, turning pink and gold and, at the last, a fiery red that made the water seem like molten metal.

Descriptive EssayPrewriting: Organizing

There are three common ways to organize a descriptive essay.

2. Order of importance. Put the most important details either first or last—to draw attention to them.

The sky’s pale blue faded to a smoky gray as the sun set, then darkened to charcoal and finally to a blue-black against which the stars began to blaze.

Descriptive EssayPrewriting: Organizing

There are three common ways to organize a descriptive essay.

3. In chronological order, writers arrange details in the order in which they occur.

You’ve chosen a subject, gathered details about it, and considered how to organize your essay.

Descriptive EssayDrafting: Getting Started

Now think about what interests you—or even amazes you—about your subject. Answer this question, and you’re ready to start writing!

Writing WorkshopDescriptive Writing: Descriptive Essay

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