Capturing the Moment

A Craft Mini-Lesson on the Importance of Description

By: Amy Carol Wilkins

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Purpose:	This craft mini-lesson is intended to illustrate to students how the use of vivid description can make their writing come alive!
Time:	30 minutes
Materials:	Personal Photographs, Student Journals, Colored Pencils or Crayons, Drawing Paper, classroom set of S.E. Hinton’s novel The Outsiders, and the first drafts of your student’s personal narratives.
Objectives:	8^th Grade North Carolina Competency Goals 1.01: The learner will narrate a personal account which selects details that best illuminate the topic. 1.03: The learner will interact in group activities and/ or seminars in which the student shares personal reactions to questions raised and clarifies, illustrates, or expands on a response when asked to do so, and asks classmates for similar expressions. 4.03: The learner will develop and apply appropriate criteria to evaluate the quality of the communication by drawing conclusions based on evidence, reasons, or relevant information. 6.00: The learner will apply conventions of grammar and language usage. National Standards For English Language Arts Students adjust their use of spoken, written, and visual language to communicate effectively with a variety of audiences and for different purposes. Students employ a wide range of strategies as they write and use different writing process elements appropriately to communicate with different audiences for a variety of purposes. Students use spoken, written, and visual language to accomplish their own purposes. “Capturing the Moment” is a craft mini-lesson that should be used when teaching students how to effectively write personal narratives. The time of year this lesson would be taught would vary depending on how the teacher has set up their curriculum. I would wait to teach this mini-lesson until after the students have completed their first drafts of their personal narrative in order for students to see how the use of vivid descriptions makes a drastic improvement on the quality of their writing. In this lesson plan, I have selected the novel, The Outsiders, to illustrate how vivid details enhance writing. At this point in time, our class is about to start this novel. However, this aspect of the mini-lesson could be adapted to fit any novel that your class is reading during the time this craft mini-lesson is taught. To follow up on this mini-lesson, analyze your student’s second drafts of their personal narratives to make sure that your students have grasped the importance of using vivid descriptions by implementing it into their own work.
Script:	“Today we are going to be exploring ways that you can make your writing come alive through the use of descriptive detail. Everyone take out your journals and the photograph that you brought for homework, but make sure that no one around you gets a good look at your photograph. Hopefully, you all remembered me telling you yesterday that no matter how tempting it may be to show your friends your photographs that it was important that you not let anyone see your photo because our activity today would not be as fun. Okay everyone, what I want you to do is take a good look at your photo and then take about ten minutes and write what you see in your photograph in your daily journal. (Allow students time to describe their photograph, more than likely, students are going to just describe in a general manner what they see on the surface of the photo. This is okay because the purpose of this mini-lesson is to instruct your students how to write more vividly and descriptively.) Okay everyone, time’s up for writing your descriptions. Now what I want is for each of you to find a person that is around you, who has not seen your picture, and partner up for the next activity. I also need you to turn your desks toward each other so you are facing each other. Then, I want one partner to come to the front of the room and pick up a pack of colored pencils and two sheets of drawing paper. Make sure that you DO NOT show each other your photos (Allow time for students to get situated). Okay, for this activity, there are two roles. One of you is going to have the role of reader and the other one of you is going to have the role of drawer. Decide now who is going to do what. Okay if you are a reader what I want you to do is take the description you wrote in your journal and read it to your partner, and what I want the drawer to do is draw what the person is describing. Make sure drawers that you do not add any detail into your picture that the reader did not say. Once you are done with this, still, DO NOT SHOW YOUR PARTNER YOUR PHOTOGRAPH. Switch roles and repeat the activity (wait until everyone is done with this before moving on to the next process of the activity). Okay, now let me ask you a question; does the picture your partner drew look anything like your photograph (more than likely, the overwhelming majority of your students are going to say no)? Now why is it that none of the drawings look anything like the photos, besides the fact that not all of us are great artists (wait for student’s responses)? What is missing in your drawings (ask random students to answer this questions)? But wait a minute, didn’t you all tell me that you drew everything that your partner read? What do you think that this means about our descriptions? Now, I want to share with you an example of when I did the same activity that you all did, minus the drawing. First, I am going to share with you my draft. While I am reading try to visualize the picture that I am describing (teacher will read his or her first attempt to describe their photograph). Okay what did you guys think? Were you able to paint my picture in your head while I was reading (students will respond with no). Okay well let’s see if you can paint a more vivid picture in your head this time with my second attempt to describe my photograph (teacher reads second attempt to describe the photo). How about that time, were you able to paint a more vivid picture in your head about what my picture looks like? What are some of the differences that you noticed between my first and second description (hopefully, students will talk about the use of color, attention to background details, description of emotion, etc)? (Use this time to go into the importance of setting the scene with sensory details: Sound, Sight, Touch, Taste, Feel) When you are writing to describe something, your main goal is to make the reader see, hear, touch, taste, and feel exactly what is being described. You have to capture the attention of the reader in order to draw them into your text. That is why it is so important to use details in your writing. You want the person reading your text to feel like they have experienced something even though they weren’t there. The same way that a photograph captures a memory, you have to capture the memory of the events or objects that you are writing about. I know you have all heard that a picture is worth a thousand words. What does that mean? You have to write in a way that makes people feel the same emotions that they feel when they look at a picture. Now finally, what I want you all to do is revise or re-write your descriptions making sure that you pay attention to the detail of the picture. Write your description in a way that when your partner goes to draw your picture, they don’t leave anything out (wait for everyone to finish their descriptions). Now since everyone is done with their descriptions I want you to get back with your partners and repeat the reading/drawing activity. Once you have done this, I want you to discuss with your partner the difference in your first picture and description compared to your second. Once you give your students a chance to discuss the differences in their own pieces of writing, read your students the following vivid passage in S.E. Hinton’s, The Outsiders. Okay class, I want you all to return your desks to their original positions and listen as I read this passage on page 9 from the novel I passed out yesterday named The Outsiders. When I steeped out into the bright sunlight from the darkness of the movie house, I had only two things on my mind: Paul Newman and a ride home. I was wishing I looked like Paul Newman—he looks tough and I don’t but I guess my own looks aren’t so bad. I have light-brown, almost-red hair and greenish-gray eyes. I wish they were more gray, because I hate most guys that have green eyes, but I have to be content with what I have. My hair is longer than a lot of boys wear theirs, squared off in back and long at the front and sides, but I am a greaser and most of my neighborhood rarely bothers to get a haircut. Besides, I look better with long hair. What mental picture did you visualize when I read this passage (wait for your students to describe to you the picture of what you just read). What did you all notice about this passage (wait for students to give their responses. Continue to let students share until a couple of students comment on the use of vivid descriptions). You all were right, S.E. Hinton did a wonderful job painting a vivid picture for her audience by selecting appropriate descriptive language. Do you think that this passage would have been as effective if S.E. Hinton had left out the use of her vivid descriptive language (Hopefully your students will talk about how the passage would not have been as appealing to them if the author had left out the vivid description. This is a great way to access if you students understood the objective of their mini-lesson with their photographs because they will make the connection that descriptive writing is more engaging and fun to read.) By reading this first paragraph of The Outsiders, do you anticipate that you will enjoy the rest of the novel (wait for a couple of student to comment on how they think they will enjoy the novel)? Okay, the majority of you commented that you think you will enjoy the novel, do you think that is in direct to connection to how S.E. Hinton chose to use vivid descriptive detail so that she paints a picture in your head as you read (wait for student responses). Knowing now that you yourself enjoy reading writing that is full of descriptive language, how do you think you can improve your first drafts of your personal narrative that was due today for your homework (wait for student responses on adding more descriptions and detail to their papers). Okay, now everyone get out your first drafts and use the remaining class time to revise your paper so that it paints a more vivid picture of what you are describing so that your audience will be able to visualize exactly what you are writing about.
Example:	First Draft: In this picture, there are two people. One is a boy and the other is a girl. They are posing behind a turkey and they are in the window of a kitchen. Second Draft: As I look at this photograph, I quickly see a large window to the outside where there are pale green walls. The window is framed in a chrome colored finish. The frame shines and the color is almost washed away as light reflects off the center of each side of the frame. As I look into the window, I notice that the window leads me to a limited view of a kitchen with small matching pale green tiles lining the back wall with a horizontal strip of white paint above the tile walls. In the center of the window, along the white stripe of paint, there is a circular clock that is framed in hunter green with a white face and black numbers and hands. There are three large army green cabinets on the right hand walls with simple silver handles at the bottom of each. In the middle of the window I see a brown haired Caucasian girl with brown eyes and a red shirt leaning over her brown eyed and brown haired Caucasian boyfriend that is propped up on both arms on the silver countertop. He is wearing a navy blue shirt and they look very happy together. In front of them sits a large turkey in a silver foil pan. The turkey looks delicious and reminds me of thanksgiving. In the middle of this golden brown turkey is a silver thermometer sticking up out of the bird that is wrapped in what appears to be a very thin colorless film. This is a picture of happiness.