4th Grade Frenzy: July 2021
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July 13, 2021

Teaching Descriptive Writing

Descriptive writing is fun to teach!


1. Start with a concrete object such as chewing gum. 

Hold up a pack of gum and have students help you tell a little story about the pack of gum without using the word gum. Guide students in using their 5 senses for this task. Ask students what they see, hear, smell, feel, and taste. Together, you may come up with something like this:

I tore open the small pink pack and removed one of the pieces. The sweet smell got to my nose before it reached my mouth. After chewing for a minute, I blew a bubble as big as my face! Pop! I peeled the sticky mess off my face and began chewing again.

2. Play a guessing game!

Divide the class into small groups of about 4 students. Distribute bags with familiar objects such as sunglasses, umbrella, hair brush, baseball, football, mittens, etc. to each group. Each group keeps their object a secret and writes a descriptive paragraph about it.  Have each group read their paragraph while the rest of the class tries to determine what the hidden object is by the description. 

You may want to explain that non-food items won't have a taste or possibly not a smell, but parts of the story may contain taste or smell. For example, if a group had mittens, the story could include hot chocolate which could have a taste and smell. The umbrella story could include the smell of rain, and the baseball story could include the taste of a ballpark hotdog. 

3. Once students have this concrete experience, proceed with some prompts like these:



Students will love descriptive writing!

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