Descriptive Writing Using the

Five Senses

By: Jennifer Vogelgesang

About Me

• I teach 3rd grade at Mark Twain Primary in Alvin.

• I have taught for six years.• I am the inclusion language arts teacher.• I co-teach with the special education teacher

or a paraprofessional. • My school’s population is a mix of

approximately 65% Hispanic, 34% Caucasian, and 1% African American.

• Approximately 90% of our students are on the free and reduced lunch program.

My Philosophy

• I believe students need to work in cooperative groups throughout the day.

• I try to build my students’ background knowledge and help them to make connections.

• I try to provide a print rich environment and encourage my students to read from a variety of materials.

• I value my students’ writing and encourage them to share their writing with others.

• I believe in writing everyday and in different situations to build writing fluency and a love for writing.

• I believe students write best from their own experiences.

Strategy

• Students make reading and writing connections.

• Students gather writing topics from their own experiences.

• Students use their five senses to add specific details to their writing.

Objectives

• The learner will increase the use of sensory details when writing about a memory.

• The learner will increase writing fluency.

Research

Reading different authors aloud also provides different voices and topics for the children to sample. The children may try some of the author’s forms of expression, ways of illustrating. Fine, but it is their choice. Often the children don’t know they are using elements from literature.Donald Graves, Writing: Teachers & Children At Work, pg. 29

Research

I want children to experience what it is to find meaning in the moments of their lives, and so I want to help them to write about moments that do not come already packaged with ready – made significance.

Lucy Calkins, The Art Of Teaching Writing, pg. 119

Research

Writing teachers can do several things to help children revitalize the language in their writing. First, we need to attune the ears of young writers to magical language whenever they hear it – in books, poems, the writing of peers, talk.

Ralph Fletcher, What A Writer Needs, pg. 144

Britton

James Britton believes story making is a fundamental means by which we learn and by which we shape our intellectual development. Making and telling stories plays a central role in the development of literacy and the growth of children’s minds.

Lesley Morrow, Literacy Development in the Early Years: Helping Children Read and Write

Piaget

• The four stages in his theory of cognitive development are: sensory motor, preoperational, concrete operational, and formal operational.

• Piaget believed that all people pass through the same four stages of intellectual development in the same order.

• He noted that a person may show characteristics of one stage in one situation but show characteristics of a higher or lower stage in other situations.

Anita E. Woolfolk, Educational Psychology, pg. 30

PiagetImplications of Piaget’s Theory:

• All students need to interact with teachers and peers in order to test their thinking, to be challenged, to receive feedback, and to change their thinking abilities.

• Another important part of cognitive development is the ability to apply the principle learned in one situation to new situations.

• Concrete experiences provide the raw materials for thinking.

Anita Woolfolk, Educational Psychology, pgs.40 - 42

Vygotsky

• Implications of Vygotsky’s Theories:

• Cognitive development occurs through a child’s interaction with adults or more able peers. (Scaffolding)

• Students should be put in situations where they have to reach to understand, but where support, from other students or from the teacher, is also available. (Zone of Proximal Development)

• Students should be guided by explanations, demonstrations, and working with other students – opportunities for cooperative learning.

Anita E. Woolfolk, Educational Psychology, pgs. 48 - 50

Five Senses Activity

Guided Practice: Find examples of

sensory details in literature.

Explore the sense of hearing.

Fill in a five senses brainstorming chart about a memory from a favorite photograph.

Writing Sample

Boring: I went fishing with my Dad. We rowed the boat to the middle of the lake. I caught a big fish, but it wriggled away. Then we ate a picnic lunch. Soon it was getting dark and we decided to go back to camp. I could hear the crickets in the grass.

After listening to a tape with sounds from the trip:

Yesterday afternoon I went fishing with my Dad. The wooden oars thumped against the boat as we rowed to the middle of the lake. I caught a silver fish, but as I was taking it off the hook it wriggled itself loose and flopped back into the water. Splash! That big fish was sure lucky to escape! Then we decided to eat our ham sandwiches. The crinkling of our paper bags made so much noise that the seagulls were swooping down to investigate. They squeaked, hoping for a bite of a sandwich. The sun started to set and we decided to head back to camp. We paddled back to shore. The boat scraped against the sand as we hauled it up onto the grass. Chirping crickets surrounded us in the woods. That sound always reminds me of summer and camping with my Dad.

Pick a Memory

I remember:

*Sneaking cookies from the cookie jar

Helping my grandmother fold clothes

Playing cars on the kitchen floor with my sister

Old – fashioned frappes

Sounds I Remember:

Clink of the cookie jar cover as I carefully try to put it back in place

Squeak of the kitchen table as I lean to reach the jar

Sticky tiptoes of rubber soles touching cracked linoleum

Crash of the screen door as I make my escape

Quietness…. Any little sound was magnified, echoed

Five Senses Activity

Independent Practice:

Write about the memory you have chosen. Remember to include the sense of hearing when writing about this special time.

Think back to that time. What sounds do you hear? Remember to use specific words to describe these sounds.

ModificationsLearning Challenged/ESL:• Work with a peer or the teacher to help generate ideas

and words for their descriptions. • Draw a detailed picture of their place or event to help tell

their story and remember the sounds they heard.• Use the co – writer or Kidspiration program on the

computer or tape record their response.• ESL students can write in their native language.

Gifted:• Write a poem about their memory.• Try and include more details using their other senses.• Create a tape of sounds and an accompanying “boring

story” for use in a workstation.

Extensions• Create a class scrapbook about a day in school or a fieldtrip

using Snapshots From the Wedding By: Gary Soto as a guide.

• Share mini lessons focusing in on the different senses and encourage students to add new sensory details to their writing each time.

• Implement workstations using the five senses.• Students hunt for sensory details in their texts. • Immerse the students in a Memoir Study.• Go on a five senses walk around the school.• Conduct mini lessons on similes, metaphors, and

onomatopoeia.

Mini LessonIdeas

• Smell: Provide students with cotton balls dipped in extracts or essential oils (vanilla, lemon, peppermint, etc.) Students write a description of the smell. Sometimes this will also trigger a memory.

• Taste: Provide students with salty, sweet, sour, and bland foods to nibble. Students write a description of the different tastes.

Mini Lesson Ideas

• Touch: Provide each pair of students with a paper bag or box filled with a different textured object. Students write a description of how their object feels without looking at it. Students read their descriptions and try to guess each other’s objects.

• Sight: Take the students on a walk outside the building. Students pick a natural or man-made object to observe. Each student writes a detailed description of their object, by sight only. Then, gather in a circle and mix up the descriptions. Randomly read the descriptions aloud without naming the person. Students guess the object that is being described.

Assessment

I would assess students’ writing over time to determine if they are increasing their use of sensory details.

I would observe if students recognize and comment on the use of sensory details in their texts.

BibliographyCalkins, L.M. (1994). The art of teaching writing. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann.Fletcher, R. & Portalupi, J. (1998). Craft lessons: teaching writing k – 8. York, Maine: Stenhouse Publishers.Fletcher, R. (1993). What a writer needs. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann.Graves, D.H. (2003). Writing: teachers & children at work. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann.Morrow, L.M. (1989). Literacy development in the early years: helping children read and write. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall Inc.Ramos, J. (2000). Elementary mini lessons. Spring, TX: Absey & Co. Inc.Woolfolk, A.E. (1993). Educational psychology. Boston: Allyn and Bacon.