Descriptive Writing

1. Choose one of the following past questions to respond to. Remember to PLAN each of your paragraphs carefully and PROOFREAD.

Describe the last moments before you leave a place forever.

Describe the best meal that you ever had with a group of people, including details of the place and the atmosphere.

Describe the atmosphere of a quiet street or neighbourhood which is then suddenly disturbed.

A major cycling race is coming through your town centre. Imagine you are at the front of the crowd waiting for the cyclists to appear. Describe the sense of expectation and the arrival of the competitors.

You witness, 50 years in the future, the opening of a time capsule containing objects buried today. Explain your thoughts and feelings as the capsule is opened, and describe some of the items.

2. Read the following example of descriptive writing from Charles Dickens.

"For, the people who were shovelling away on the housetops were jovial and full of glee; calling out to one another from the parapets, and now and then exchanging a facetious snowball -- better-natured missile far than many a wordy jest -- laughing heartily if it went right and not less heartily if it went wrong. The poulterers' shops were still half open, and the fruiterers' were radiant in their glory. There were great, round, round, pot-bellied baskets of chestnuts, shaped like the waistcoats of jolly old gentlemen, lolling at the doors, and tumbling out into the street in their apoplectic opulence. There were ruddy, brown-faced, broad-girthed Spanish Friars, and winking from their shelves in wanton slyness at the girls as they went by, and glanced demurely at the hung-up mistletoe. There were pears and apples, clustered high in blooming pyramids; there were bunches of grapes, made, in the shopkeepers' benevolence to dangle from conspicuous hooks, that people's mouths might water gratis as they passed; there were piles of filberts, mossy and brown, recalling, in their fragrance, ancient walks among the woods, and pleasant shufflings ankle deep through withered leaves; there were Norfolk Biffins, squab and swarthy, setting off the yellow of the oranges and lemons, and, in the great compactness of their juicy persons, urgently entreating and beseeching to be carried home in paper bags and eaten after dinner. The very gold and silver fish, set forth among these choice fruits in a bowl, though members of a dull and stagnant-blooded race, appeared to know that there was something going on; and, to a fish, went gasping round and round their little world in slow and passionless excitement."

Based on Dickens’ descriptive style, create a mouth-wateringly tempting description of cakes in a baker’s window. Aim for 300-350 words. Pay attention to punctuation and descriptive devices. Use the sentence structure below to help you.

The baker’s shop was still open; the ...…and……were radiant in their glory. In the window there were…………………….,……………………………and…………… shaped like………………………. (extend simile) There were…………. (personification- describe cakes as though a person).There were……………………and……………………..clustered high like......; there were baskets of……..hanging conspicuously on hooks that people might………….. ; there were piles of………… , their fragrance (appeal to reader’s sense of smell); there were ……………………, (adjective) and (adjective), setting off the …………………….of the ………….and ……….urgently entreating and beseeching to be carried home in paper bags and eaten after dinner.