University
Writing Skills
Writing and
Vocabulary-Building: Descriptive Words and Texts
One of the marks
of a good writer is a rich and varied vocabulary; strong, active verbs
and precisely chosen nouns provide the basis, but adjectives and adverbs,
chosen carefully and used judiciously, also help make descriptive texts
more vivid and evocative. This activity gives you a chance to expand your
repertoire of adjectives while you practice techniques for vocabulary
acquisition.
- Choose a person to write
about. It should be someone to whom you have strong emotional ties
(positive or negative), but whom you have not seen for some time (i.e.
months, years). Close your eyes and visualize the person in detail.
Your ultimate goal in this assignment is to evoke in the reader
a sense of his or her character and personality, not merely an image
of what the person looks like.
- Spend ten minutes freewriting
in your journal to activate your memories of that person. Write about
things you did together or shared with each other and about your feelings
about these things, and also write about those aspects of the person's
appearance that stand out most strongly in your memory.
- Look over what you have
written and circle, underline or highlight the most important features.
- Take a clean sheet of paper
and write down the words or phrases you highlighted in step 3. Now use
pre-writing activities (brainstorming, mind-mapping, clustering) to
add to generate a collection of words and phrases that are suggestive
of that person's salient qualities (personality and character traits),
on the one hand, and physical appearance and behavior (mannerisms, gait,
posture, facial expressions, gestures, habits, etc.).
- Use this information to
block out one or more paragraphs about this person. Blocking
out a paragraph involves drawing a two-column box or table, writing
the controlling idea at the top and listing the main points in one column
and the "evidence," or supporting details for each point in
the other column. Tip: In the example below, the writer will
need to use linking constructions to establish the contrast between
James' intellectual brilliance and his shyness. Without good linking
or signposting, the text will seem haphazard and chaotic because
the two main points seem unrelated to each other.
|
Controlling
idea: James is brilliant but shy.
|
| point: |
supporting
details: |
| brains |
looks
like the stereotypical geek: thick, horn-rimmed glasses, slightly
rumpled clothes, wears inexpensive shirts, twills and cardigans
skipped two grades in school
honors classes in junior high school
top scores in national university scholarship competition
accepted by a half-dozen first-rate universities |
| shyness |
couldn't
be persuaded to ask a girl to go to his senior prom because
it would have meant initiating a conversation
doesn't walk straight into a room, but leads with his shoulder,
sidling like a crab
stands at a slight angle to the person he is talking to, in
a perpetual "fight or flight" stance
|
- Write
the paragraph(s).
- Ask one or two friends to
read the paragraph aloud, or read it aloud to yourself. Listen
for places that are awkward to read aloud and mark them for revision.
Have your friends tell you in their own words about the person
you have described (this will help you decide whether you have expressed
what you intended to express about the person) and invite them to ask
questions about the person (this will help you fill in gaps in your
description). Note down the things you think need to be added, taken
out, or modified, e.g. the things you had to explain to your readers.
- Revise and edit
the text as needed.
Vocabulary Work
- Using the list you produced
in Step 4 as a jumping-off point, and without using a dictionary or
thesaurus, make a new table. Write a list of the nouns in one column
and as many specific descriptive terms as you can think of that you
associate with each noun in the other.
| Noun |
Descriptive
Adjectives |
| hair: |
curly,
stringy, long, short, shoulder-length, kinky, wavy, straight |
| posture: |
erect,
slouch/-ed/-ing, bent over, relaxed, stiff |
| gait: |
ambling,
mincing, steady, awkward, smooth, limping, uneven, etc.
|
- Working with a partner,
expand your list to include as many key concepts relating to a person's
character, personality, and appearance as you can think of together.
Work first without referring to a dictionary or thesaurus.
- Compare and combine your
results with those of another pair of students. Use mind-mapping or
clustering to associate descriptive words with each key concept. At
this stage, you may want to refer to a thesaurus. If you do not own
a thesaurus, use the online Webster's Thesaurus. (URL = http://www.m-w.com/cgi-bin/thesaurus).
Circle any words you have questions about (e.g. what they mean or whether
they can be used in conjunction with the characteristic with which you
have associated them).
- Discuss the nuances of meaning
(both denotations and connotations) of any words about which you have
questions. Feel free to consult your teacher or a dictionary for clarification.
- You should now have a rich
collection of descriptive words; use them judiciously as you rewrite
your description / narration again to make it a more precise, detailed
and evocative text.
Note: If you find this
technique useful, you might want to try using it with other topics as
well to broaden the vocabulary resources you have available to draw on
when you write.
UWS
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