We can describe Can you ?

According to Anton Chekhov, ‘Don’t tell me the moon is shining show me the glint of light on broken glass.’ Having stated this brings us to the topic presented this week, Descriptive Writing. The lesson began with a sentence written on the board where we had to distinguish between the subject and object. During the lesson, a student made mention that he learned about subject and object of sentences recently. This was an opportunity for the lecturer to stress the importance of being knowledgeable of your content that you are going to teach in order to avoid such misconceptions. It was evident that although we knew what adjectives were, there were still some of us that were not as sound with identifying subjects and objects of sentences. Therefore are we able to teach our future students about descriptive writing ?

It was further established however that we teach children to write using adjectives and encourage them not to overuse these same adjectives. Additionally we must encourage them to use vivid verbs, colorful adjectives, avoid tired words such as nice and pretty for example and teach sensory words such as synonyms like smell for olfactory, touch (tactile), taste (gustatory), sight (visual), and for hearing (auditory) just to name a few. Likewise, we should teach the use of figurative language. Onomatopoeia was one device that was used for instance, some examples were words such as, clink, russell and buzz were presented. Another device presented was simile which we should teach our students for clear comparison. It was also made mention that as teachers we must model to students and let them brainstorm. Finally, these aforementioned are some factors to be considered when teaching descriptive writing.

However, there are some problems that some students may face with descriptive writing such as, limited vocabulary. It was however noted at this junction that we teach our students the use of the thesaurus, point out interest words, and encourage them to read. On the other hand, it was proven that words do not exist in isolation. Therefore what does this mean to us ? This means that as teachers we must ensure that we give our students words in sentences so they could gain a clearer understanding. We should also take risks with more complex writing and allow them to write for different purposes. A strategy that stood out for us was the fact that when teaching descriptive writing we should take our students outside.

This allow them to make connections to what they see then we should permit them to share what they have observed whether by sight, touch or smell in some instances.

When children learn to use adjectives correctly this contributes to their overall performance as it relates descriptive writing. This motivates them to write more and and as a result they are better able to express themselves. What this means to us as teachers ? It means that we should encourage constant immersion in print. The more children read the more their vocabulary develops thus enabling their writing and spelling which we have learned in a previous lecture that there is an existing connection or linkages between the three.

Moreover, as teachers we recognize that it is critical that we model how a descriptive piece should be written.

Often times as students we were presented to topics and ask to write. For instance in describing My Summer Holiday or My Day at the Beach. We wrote blindly not really understanding what descriptive writing entailed.

Therefore as teachers anticipating the classrooms we should seek to change this trend. Students must see good writing to replicate good writing. Consequently, when a model is written on the board students can follow and see how the teacher uses his/her words in developing a descriptive piece. It is not fair to give students topics to write about and assume that they are knowledgeable of what is to be done. This however appeal to us as teachers that we must show models

of what we expect from them by formulating our own descriptive piece between the class session. Additionally, the teacher can allow the students to assist as they formulate the piece. By doing this, they are becoming more familiar with words that are relevant for descriptive writing.

In concluding this excerpt, we think that by placing a model of a piece of descriptive writing in the lecture would have refreshed our memories as to what a descriptive writing should look like since it was part of our assignment to write a descriptive piece for our journals.