1. Write a descriptive essay on a topic as "my first year as a special education teacher in an ICT classroom by myself". Please follow the link below and implement all the best ways to descriptive wri

Descriptive Writing Checklist

Identify Specific Activities and Behaviors

1. Describe the characters’ actions. Instead of writing that “The bear was busy in the woods,” writers identify the bear’s activities: It climbed a tree, hunted for food, slept in a cave.

2. Name the characters. Instead of writing about “a little girl,” writers name their characters and provide details about their appearance and personalities. Is this little girl a toothless wonder like Junie B. Jones (Park, 2003), irrepressible like Clementine (Pennypacker, 2008), or a fantastic storyteller like Gooney Bird Greene (Lowry, 2004)?

3. Identify the setting. Instead of writing “In a little town . . .,” writers name the town or describe where it’s located. The writer also identifies other aspects of setting, including weather, season, time of day, date, and day of the week.

Use Deliberate Word Choice

1. Choose specific nouns. General nouns paint a fuzzy picture, but specific nouns create a more colorful and detailed picture. Car, for example, is a general noun; nouns that are more specific include minivan, sports car, station wagon, convertible, and SUV.

2. Use vivid verbs. Vivid verbs are more descriptive than ordinary verbs. Walked, for example, is an ordinary verb, but trudged, hiked, marched, shuffled, and strutted are more descriptive and give writing more energy. (Students should avoid the “to be” verbs—is, are, was, were. For example, instead of using is in the sentence The snake is on the rock, the verbs sunbathes, sleeps, and lurks are more vivid alternatives.

3. Add colorful modifiers. Adjectives modify nouns, and adverbs describe the action of verbs. For example, a sixth grader packed too many modifiers into this sentence: The tired and calm two-year-old child sat quietly in his lovely mother’s lap to listen to a story at his 8 o’clock bedtime. The sentence can be improved by shortening it and by substituting more specific nouns and verbs: The tired toddler rested in his mother’s lap listening to a bedtime story.

4. Opt for synonyms to avoid repetition. A thesaurus lists synonyms, words with similar meanings, that writers use to avoid repetition; students must take care, however, to choose a synonym that fits the meaning of the sentence. For example, synonyms for famous include noted, prominent, eminent, and notorious, but not all of these words are appropriate substitutes for famous in this sentence: Charles Lindbergh was a famous aviator.

5. Avoid “tired” words. Students often overuse common words, such as said, nice, bad, good, and pretty, but they can choose fresher alternatives. Instead, encourage the use of : fine; excellent; outstanding; admirable; respectable; and splendid.

Incorporate Sensory Images

1. Writers incorporate the five senses into their writing to craft stronger images and to make their word pictures more vivid. ● Sight: the toddler’s freckled face ● Smell: the perfumed air in grandma’s rose garden ● Touch: a comfy pair of old jeans ● Hearing: blaring Hip Hop music ● Taste: a bowl of kicking-hot chili

Use Figurative Language

1. Try personification. Sometimes writers treat animals, objects, and ideas as people by attributing human qualities to them.

2. Incorporate onomatopoeia. Writers use words that mimic sounds, and sometimes they craft a string of syllables to more accurately represent a sound; this technique is called onomatopoeia.

3. Craft comparisons

4. Play with idioms. For example, “under the weather” means feeling sick.

5. Make speech patterns distinctive. Authors know that like real people, characters each need their own unique voices.