Ch 10. Descriptive Writing

Descriptive writing is “painting word pictures with details, dialogue, and sensory images” (Tompkins, p. 221). It makes writing more enriched, vivid, and alive, having readers feel like they are in the story actually. Students should learn descriptive techniques to use proficiently them in writing. They can add specific information to give writing sense of reality, and choose vivid and color words to convey contexts effectively. Sensory images, comparison, and dialogue provide readers with story in three dimensions. Teachers can teach descriptive writing with enough examples for students to experience power of description immediately. Through these direct experiences, “the students must understand that the writer's goal is for the reader to picture what is in the writer's head through the use of descriptive words” (Diliberto, 2004).

According to Kyoungchun Kim, metaphors and similes in comparison look like poems that children can read with ease. I totally agree this opinion, and I want to add one more thing. Comparison is also very effective when making students brainstorm or associate existing one with a novelty. It stimulate them think a variety of idea clusters without boundary back to back, teaching them how to develop their thoughts and how to generate inspirations. I believe ideas from such a free method certainly provide their writing with more ample and rich expression to give audiences interests in reading.

Diliberto, J. (2004). Improving Descriptive Sentence Writing in Elementary Students. Preventing School Failure, 4, 34-36.

Tompkins, G. (2008). Teaching writing: Balancing process and product. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson.

Ch 8. Expository Writing

 

“Through early, successful experiences with expository writing, children not only learn how to write reports but also gain knowledge in different subject areas” (Tompkins, p. 73). Students can do many activities individually or collaboratively, and all activities should include reading and writing to learn about the characteristics of each genre firstly. Also, students should be taught five expository patterns: Description, Sequence, Comparison, Cause and effect, and Problem and solution, with their cue words. Expository writing is one of the most common in everyday life, so they should be informed of the danger of plagiarism, as well as its rubrics that guide them the right direction and of expository writing.

My colleague Anica said, expository writing “could be very helpful for students who do not write formally to be taken use of since they can think like this is kind of fun.” Through multigenre projects, teachers can increase students’ interests in expository writing well. Not finished with one try, they can develop their ideas back to back to gain different understandings, remember facts to a deeper, and enhance critical comprehension level (Tompkins, p. 182). Overall process can not only give students rich and keen information from researches for answering the questions, but provides them with enjoyment of paraphrasing or making their own version. This repetend “helps move students closer to mastering the hows, whens, and wheres to select different oral and written expository styles for a variety of real world contexts” (Marshall, n.d.).

http://www.stanford.edu/~arnetha/expowrite/index.html

Tompkins, G. (2008). Teaching writing: Balancing process and product. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson.