What makes a good descriptive text

The purpose of a descriptive essay is also to inform the reader on a particular topic, event, or experience. However, some topics are extremely broad and without setting out a clear focus for their writing, there is a danger that students writing can veer off course as they scramble to share with the reader everything they know about their chosen topic.

To avoid this, it is essential that students narrow down which aspects of their selected topic their essay will concern itself with. An effective means of doing this is by writing a thesis statement. The thesis statement lays out the specific purpose of the text and usually it is embedded in the introductory paragraph. While it can be difficult at times for students to define their thesis statement for a descriptive text, the following process should help guide students:.

Following the process above will help students to write a thesis statement that performs the two defining tasks of a thesis statement, namely:.

While the thesis statement in a descriptive essay is not as central as in, say, a persuasive essay, it still serves the important function of orienting the reader while providing the writer with a clear focus for their energies. The clue is the title! To evoke the subject in the minds of the readers, your students will need to drill down into the essence of the thing itself. We experience the world around us through our senses and it is through the use of sensory language that our students will evoke the essence of the thing they are writing about.

Each column will be labelled with the name of one of the five senses: sight, sound, smell, taste, touch. While, for the most part, descriptive texts are nonfiction texts, there is still plenty of room here for students to exercise their creative faculties.

Encourage students to employ literary devices such as simile, metaphor, and personification to bring their sensory descriptions to life. This can also be a great opportunity to reinforce student understanding of the various literary devices themselves. You can also encourage students to use a thesaurus to uncover suitable and interesting adjectives to help them evoke the essence of the thing itself. Not only will this help them to produce a well-written descriptive text, but it will give them the opportunity to enhance their vocabulary as they work.

Remember, every point a student makes in their essay should be in support of their thesis statement. As with many types of essays, the standard five-paragraph essay structure will serve well here. This structure works as follows:. Paragraph 1: The opening paragraph introduces the main topic viewpoint of the essay. This will usually include a thesis statement. More body paragraphs may be added as needed. Paragraph 5: The purpose of the conclusion paragraph is to restate the thesis statement, summarize the various points made in the essay itself, and to leave the reader with something to think about.

This standard format provides a helpful template for students to outline their descriptive text before writing.

It will help ensure their writing stays focused and moves forward in a coherent manner. While they should refer closely to the prep work they have done already, students should also be encouraged to let things flow too. Writing is as much art as it is science.

Having a clear, disciplined structure in place from the previous steps will allow students the freedom to take chances and get creative in their writing.

Sometimes students at this stage find it difficult to let go in their writing. They want things to be perfect the first time round. In other words, descriptive writing is vivid, colorful, and detailed. The writing will be such that it will set a mood or describe something in such detail that if the reader saw it, they would recognize it.

Descriptive writing will bring words to life and makes the text interesting. Because descriptive text is so powerful, many examples of it can be found in famous literature and poetry. The weather had changed overnight, when a backing wind brought a granite sky and a mizzling rain with it, and although it was now only a little after two o'clock in the afternoon the pallor of a winter evening seemed to have closed upon the hills, cloaking them in mist.

You can see that the writer had to carefully choose his words so that the reader could almost see and feel the weather that was occurring. Descriptive text examples can also be found in many songs, since songs are meant to capture your emotions and to invoke a feeling. It rolls sullenly in slow folds from the great chimneys of the iron-foundries, and settles down in black, slimy pools on the muddy streets.

Smoke on the wharves, smoke on the dingy boats, on the yellow river-- clinging in a coating of greasy soot to the house-front, the two faded poplars, the faces of the passers-by.

So, now you have many different examples of descriptive text and you can try your own hand at writing a sentence or paragraph that helps to paint a picture and evoke emotions. View all posts by: sherry. Currently you have JavaScript disabled. In Alfred Tennyson's "The Eagle," he conveys power and majesty in just a few lines:.

The wrinkled sea beneath him crawls; He watches from his mountain walls, And like a thunderbolt he falls. Descriptive text examples can also be found in many songs, since songs are meant to capture your emotions and to invoke a feeling. Some of the most vivid and effective descriptive writing in music can be found in rap. Now that you have several different examples of descriptive text, you can try your hand at writing a detailed, descriptive sentence, paragraph or short story of your own.

If you need help with powerful descriptions, try some figurative language to help to paint a picture and evoke emotions. All rights reserved.

Bright red and orange sunrise. Good Descriptive Writing Good descriptive writing creates an impression in the reader's mind of an event, a place, a person, or a thing. To be good, descriptive writing has to be concrete, evocative and plausible.

To be concrete , descriptive writing has to offer specifics the reader can envision. Dark blue? As always in the craft of writing: when in doubt, write less.