Challenge Grant Learning Interchange (Unit)

Lesson 4: Descriptive Language

Developed by Bonnie Frazier and Brian Grisetti

Lesson 4: Descriptive Language

The focus of this lesson is identification of descriptive language (i.e., sensory imagery) in writing and telling how it enhances the story.

a. Descriptive words enhance the sensory images presented to the reader.
b. Sensory words and phrases invoke all five senses (sight, hearing, taste, smell, and touch).
c. When sensory words are eliminated, the story is reduced to a literal telling.

Subject:English/Languages Arts
Learning Level: Middle School
Author(s): Bonnie Frazier and Brian Grisetti
Submitted by: Brian Grisetti

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.

Time Frame: 1-2 50 minute periods
Materials/Resources: pencil, paper, pictures and photos to be described
Pre-lesson preparation: Lists of sensory adjectives, vivid verbs, pictures and photos that invite description

1. The students listen to teacher-read story presented on the overhead.
2. After the selection has been read several times, students participate in a whole-class discussion on why descriptive language makes a story more effective due to the images created.
3. The students write a short journal entry on why they think descriptive language makes a story more effective.
4. The teacher divides the class into their small groups and participate in a descriptive language scavenger hunt, locating examples rich in sensory images from various sources, including books from the classroom home, samples from the internet.

Journal entries, including items from scavenger hunt.

Computer optional