Descriptive Writing
Our Descriptive Writing lesson plan for grades 4-6 teaches students to develop the skills needed for descriptive writing. Students practice using the strategies taught in this lesson to enhance their writing.
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Our Descriptive Writing lesson plan for grades 4-6 helps students develop the skills needed for descriptive writing. Students are asked to use both their creativity and their technical writing skills in order to write descriptive sentences, paragraphs, and even essays. Students work collaboratively on an assignment in which one child writes a detailed description of a scene or object and the other student draws it; this allows the students to see how much detail a reader can glean from their writing. Students are also asked to work independently to make boring descriptions more interesting.
At the end of the lesson, students will be able to use precise words and phrases, descriptive details, and sensory language to convey experiences and events.
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Descriptive writing
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Descriptive Writing Material
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Descriptive Writing
Here’s a huge variety of resources on descriptive writing: lesson ideas, graphic organizers, worksheets, and practice pages for book reports, how-to, science, and explanatory writing. Plus, activities for selecting sensory words, adjectives, adverbs, and interesting synonyms.
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How to Write a Descriptive Essay | Example & Tips
Published on July 30, 2020 by Jack Caulfield . Revised on August 14, 2023.
A descriptive essay gives a vivid, detailed description of something—generally a place or object, but possibly something more abstract like an emotion. This type of essay , like the narrative essay , is more creative than most academic writing .
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Descriptive essay topics, tips for writing descriptively, descriptive essay example, other interesting articles, frequently asked questions about descriptive essays.
When you are assigned a descriptive essay, you’ll normally be given a specific prompt or choice of prompts. They will often ask you to describe something from your own experience.
- Describe a place you love to spend time in.
- Describe an object that has sentimental value for you.
You might also be asked to describe something outside your own experience, in which case you’ll have to use your imagination.
- Describe the experience of a soldier in the trenches of World War I.
- Describe what it might be like to live on another planet.
Sometimes you’ll be asked to describe something more abstract, like an emotion.
If you’re not given a specific prompt, try to think of something you feel confident describing in detail. Think of objects and places you know well, that provoke specific feelings or sensations, and that you can describe in an interesting way.
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The key to writing an effective descriptive essay is to find ways of bringing your subject to life for the reader. You’re not limited to providing a literal description as you would be in more formal essay types.
Make use of figurative language, sensory details, and strong word choices to create a memorable description.
Use figurative language
Figurative language consists of devices like metaphor and simile that use words in non-literal ways to create a memorable effect. This is essential in a descriptive essay; it’s what gives your writing its creative edge and makes your description unique.
Take the following description of a park.
This tells us something about the place, but it’s a bit too literal and not likely to be memorable.
If we want to make the description more likely to stick in the reader’s mind, we can use some figurative language.
Here we have used a simile to compare the park to a face and the trees to facial hair. This is memorable because it’s not what the reader expects; it makes them look at the park from a different angle.
You don’t have to fill every sentence with figurative language, but using these devices in an original way at various points throughout your essay will keep the reader engaged and convey your unique perspective on your subject.
Use your senses
Another key aspect of descriptive writing is the use of sensory details. This means referring not only to what something looks like, but also to smell, sound, touch, and taste.
Obviously not all senses will apply to every subject, but it’s always a good idea to explore what’s interesting about your subject beyond just what it looks like.
Even when your subject is more abstract, you might find a way to incorporate the senses more metaphorically, as in this descriptive essay about fear.
Choose the right words
Writing descriptively involves choosing your words carefully. The use of effective adjectives is important, but so is your choice of adverbs , verbs , and even nouns.
It’s easy to end up using clichéd phrases—“cold as ice,” “free as a bird”—but try to reflect further and make more precise, original word choices. Clichés provide conventional ways of describing things, but they don’t tell the reader anything about your unique perspective on what you’re describing.
Try looking over your sentences to find places where a different word would convey your impression more precisely or vividly. Using a thesaurus can help you find alternative word choices.
- My cat runs across the garden quickly and jumps onto the fence to watch it from above.
- My cat crosses the garden nimbly and leaps onto the fence to survey it from above.
However, exercise care in your choices; don’t just look for the most impressive-looking synonym you can find for every word. Overuse of a thesaurus can result in ridiculous sentences like this one:
- My feline perambulates the allotment proficiently and capers atop the palisade to regard it from aloft.
An example of a short descriptive essay, written in response to the prompt “Describe a place you love to spend time in,” is shown below.
Hover over different parts of the text to see how a descriptive essay works.
On Sunday afternoons I like to spend my time in the garden behind my house. The garden is narrow but long, a corridor of green extending from the back of the house, and I sit on a lawn chair at the far end to read and relax. I am in my small peaceful paradise: the shade of the tree, the feel of the grass on my feet, the gentle activity of the fish in the pond beside me.
My cat crosses the garden nimbly and leaps onto the fence to survey it from above. From his perch he can watch over his little kingdom and keep an eye on the neighbours. He does this until the barking of next door’s dog scares him from his post and he bolts for the cat flap to govern from the safety of the kitchen.
With that, I am left alone with the fish, whose whole world is the pond by my feet. The fish explore the pond every day as if for the first time, prodding and inspecting every stone. I sometimes feel the same about sitting here in the garden; I know the place better than anyone, but whenever I return I still feel compelled to pay attention to all its details and novelties—a new bird perched in the tree, the growth of the grass, and the movement of the insects it shelters…
Sitting out in the garden, I feel serene. I feel at home. And yet I always feel there is more to discover. The bounds of my garden may be small, but there is a whole world contained within it, and it is one I will never get tired of inhabiting.
If you want to know more about AI tools , college essays , or fallacies make sure to check out some of our other articles with explanations and examples or go directly to our tools!
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The key difference is that a narrative essay is designed to tell a complete story, while a descriptive essay is meant to convey an intense description of a particular place, object, or concept.
Narrative and descriptive essays both allow you to write more personally and creatively than other kinds of essays , and similar writing skills can apply to both.
If you’re not given a specific prompt for your descriptive essay , think about places and objects you know well, that you can think of interesting ways to describe, or that have strong personal significance for you.
The best kind of object for a descriptive essay is one specific enough that you can describe its particular features in detail—don’t choose something too vague or general.
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Caulfield, J. (2023, August 14). How to Write a Descriptive Essay | Example & Tips. Scribbr. Retrieved April 9, 2024, from https://www.scribbr.com/academic-essay/descriptive-essay/
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Writing a Descriptive Paragraph: Lesson Plan + Explanatory Essay
Lesson: Writing a Descriptive Paragraph
Level: Intermediate
Materials: Ticket to English 2 Coursebook (pp. 16 & 17) and a handout (describing people's physical appearance)
Lesson Plan: Download it from here .
Explanatory Essay (Procedure & Rationale):
In this writing lesson, students will bring their personal experiences into the class and write a descriptive paragraph about someone who has touched their lives in one way or another or someone they have a soft spot for.
At the outset of the lesson, I start with a quick warm-up followed by a guessing game called ‘find someone who'. I opted for this game mainly because it will help my learners review some vocabulary related to the unit in general and to the current task in particular in an authentic, funny way. The game also serves as a smooth transition to the main objective of the lesson.
The game can be done orally with high achievers and as a quick writing task with slow learners. The latter can use slips of paper where they can write some qualities of their classmates without mentioning their names and let the class guess who they are talking about. To illustrate this more, students are expected to do the task this way: “He is tall and white… He has medium-length, wavy, black hair and brown, big eyes…He is very good at Maths and Physics. Who am I talking about?”
In the pre-writing model paragraph, I added three instructions through which learners can implicitly learn that descriptive paragraphs also abide by some organization. In other words, the task prompts the students to start their paragraphs by introducing the person they describe then mention his/her different qualities and characteristics and wrap it up with what other people think of the person in question.
Likewise, through exercise 1, students will look at the model paragraph in some depth and deconstruct it into parts, and thus get a clearer idea about how to write a descriptive paragraph. Once they are done, learners resettle to study the two tables on page 17 to further learn more adjectives used to describe both appearance and character, whereupon they are provided with a handout (optional) that shows the verbs that match each type of the adjectives as well as the order they take in case more than two adjectives are used.
To check students’ understanding of the adjectives and their use before they embark on writing, they play quick exchanges, which will likely go:
A: Have you got any closest friend/What’s your favorite family member?
B: Yes, I do/ My mother.
A: What does s/he look like?
B: Well, s/he is average height and slim. S/he’s got brown eyes and straight black long hair.
A: What’s s/he like?
B: S/he’s honest, kind and friendly…
This task can be carried out in close pairs to give students a chance to decide on who to talk about or to get their peers’ prior consent before kicking off their conversations as there is a risk of asking uncomfortable questions. That is, for some reasons, students are reluctant or don’t want to talk about their families, and it is part of our job, as instructors, to be aware of that.
In the while-writing phase, students start writing their first draft, making recourse to previous activities in the lesson and some heuristic questions. As regards the last question, the teacher gives ample examples illustrating “philosophy to life”.
In the process of writing, students are encouraged to consult dictionaries or ask their classmates for help. As an instructor, I never lose sight of the fact that in addition to the target skill, students should learn other skills such as learning autonomy (consulting dictionaries) and collaboration (helping each other). Having done with the first draft, students exchange their paragraphs for peer editing. The editing checklist is kept to a minimum as this is supposedly the first writing classroom experience in the school year.
After they finalize their paragraphs, some students read out their pieces of writing for the sake of giving other learners the chance to reflect and suggest adjustments in case anything is missing or unbefitting. Moreover, by recognizing their peers’ efforts and help, students are likely to develop some emotional intelligence and gratitude, which is one of the important soft skills. It is worth noting that the instructor makes it clear from the very beginning that the best outcomes will be published in the third issue of the English Club’s Magazine to trigger some competitiveness among learners, for it has always been a major point of pride for a student to see his/her piece of writing along with his/her picture feature in any medium for other people to read.
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This lesson plan explores the characteristics of descriptive essays using a video lesson. An essay writing activity gives students practice with the nuances of descriptive writing. Create an account
The Describing Wheel (opens in a new window) offers a more open-ended format for capturing and organizing descriptive language. The Show-Me Sentences (opens in a new window) lesson plan from ReadWriteThink was created for students in grades 6-12. However, elementary teachers can modify the Show-Me sentences to make them interesting for younger ...
Descriptive writing toolkit. Objective: By the end of the lesson/s the students will be able to: Identify 2-3 types of imagery as used to describe some scene/person/object. Comment on the imagery/word choice in terms of the effect created. Focus on and analyze the effect of the word choice made by an author in a given passage.
Tell students that today they are going to learn about a new technique to write more descriptively. Show a mentor textthat demonstrates the strategy at play. Ask students to share what they notice. Ask students to name the strategy if they can. Model using the strategy in your own writing.
4 DESCRIPTIVE WRITING Writing Lesson Plan Title: Descriptive Paragraph Time Frame: 50 minute lesson Assumptions: Students have learned basic parts of speech (verb, pronoun, adjective) in previous lessons. Materials Needed • More About the USA text • Writing Power 1 text • Beach or other distinctive place picture (See Appendix A)
to write short descriptive passages. Part Three helps students hunker down into fine-line pre-planning and editing of the descriptions they're writing. Part Four presents opportuni-ties for using descriptive-writing techniques across the curriculum. Activities in all four parts lead up to writing a Personal Essay. 5 TO THE TEACHER
Our Descriptive Writing lesson plan for grades 4-6 helps students develop the skills needed for descriptive writing. Students are asked to use both their creativity and their technical writing skills in order to write descriptive sentences, paragraphs, and even essays. Students work collaboratively on an assignment in which one child writes a ...
Here's a huge variety of resources on descriptive writing: lesson ideas, graphic organizers, worksheets, and practice pages for book reports, how-to, science, and explanatory writing. Plus, activities for selecting sensory words, adjectives, adverbs, and interesting synonyms. Scholastic Teachables— worksheets, lesson plans, learning games ...
The writing tips below can provide a step-by-step template for writing descriptive essays. 1. Choose a specific topic. Strong descriptive essays remain focused at all times. Settle on the purpose of the essay before you begin outlining or writing. It may be appropriate to summarize your main idea in a thesis statement.
An example of a short descriptive essay, written in response to the prompt "Describe a place you love to spend time in," is shown below. Hover over different parts of the text to see how a descriptive essay works. On Sunday afternoons I like to spend my time in the garden behind my house. The garden is narrow but long, a corridor of green ...
Introduction to the Writing Process: Character Description Essays. For Teachers 8th - 9th. Students analyze and evaluate an essay and write a character description. In this character description lesson, students read and analyze an essay in a teacher-led lecture. Students brainstorm then write a well-developed essay...
Descriptive Essay Format. A descriptive essay should have three parts: beginning (introduction), middle (body), and end (conclusion). The total number of paragraphs may vary. Introduction: Get the ...
Explanatory Essay (Procedure & Rationale): In this writing lesson, students will bring their personal experiences into the class and write a descriptive paragraph about someone who has touched their lives in one way or another or someone they have a soft spot for. At the outset of the lesson, I start with a quick warm-up followed by a guessing ...
View 16,590 other resources for 9th - 12th Grade Visual & Performing Arts. This Descriptive Essay Lesson Plan is suitable for 9th - 12th Grade. Pupils review previously written essays, draw pictures of shapes, and write descriptive essays.
Descriptive writing vividly portrays a person, place ,or thing in such a way that the reader can visualize the topic and enter into the writer's experiencewith all five senses . Similarly, works of art provide a rich opportunity to engage the senses through the artist's use of sensory details. This lesson is designed to help students recognize
Find descriptive writing essay lesson plans and teaching resources. From descriptive essay writing worksheets to writing descriptive essays videos, quickly find teacher-reviewed educational resources.
This lesson is a simple step-by-step progression to writing a descriptive sentence that addresses Who, What, When, Where, Why and How. It allows students to practice adding detail to their writing without fear of going overboard, or going off topic. Descriptive writing allows the reader to gain a. Subjects:
Visible Speech: A Short Course in the Fundamentals of Writing (Lesson 5) For Teachers 7th - 9th. Of these five slides, two consist of the title and directions; the other three list the parts of an essay and their purpose, as well as how to best begin an essay.
Use formatting to organize an explanatory essay after comparing and contrasting expository and narrative genres. Young writers explore expository writing by employing prewriting techniques and graphic organizers to plan an essay. This is...
Students write an essay describing the Curtis Center and what they learned there. In this descriptive writing essay, students discuss the five paragraph essay and review sensory discoveries from their trip. Students draft an outline and...