Food and Family: Description
Purpose: This activity is intended to inspire students to write very descriptively, and it can be used as an invention exercise for a personal essay in 1101
Description: By using a previous very descriptive essay, students create a list of 10 favorite foods, narrow down, and end up writing descriptive paragraphs about them, including when they first had them, and other detail driven inquiries. The activity relates to “No Woman, No Cry” but any descriptive essay can be used.
Suggested Time: 30-45 minutes (If students don’t read the essay ahead of time, this could very well encompass an entire class period).
Procedure:
1. Have students make a list of their ten favorite foods from childhood in their journals or wherever you have them do invention exercises (or, depending on what you are having them write about, you could modify the exercise and have them make a list of least favorite foods, current favorite foods, ten foods they would most like to try, ten favorite ethnic foods, etc). This step shouldn’t take longer than about five minutes for most students.
2. Once most students have completed their list, have them answer some questions about each item on their list. When or where did you first eat this food? Who served it to you? How often did you eat this food? What memories do you associate with this food? Do you still eat this food today? How is this food prepared?
3. Now, have your students choose several items to examine more thoroughly. Have them create a list of adjectives that could be used to describe each word. Encourage them to think about using all five senses.
4. (If not read ahead of time) Display “No Woman, No Cry” on the projector screen and have students read the essay.
5. Have the students discuss the following questions:
What about this essay is particularly powerful?
Do any images (sensory details) pop out at you?
Why do those particular images stand out and what do they do for the essay?
What is effective about the organization/focus?
What, if anything, doesn't work for you?
How does food function as an organizing factor in this essay?
How does the author transition from food to family?
Is the transition effective?
How does the piece "move" overall?
In regards to the essay overall, what could have been done differently?
6. Using “No Woman, No Cry” as an example of effective description, tell your students to choose three foods from their lists to write a paragraph about. If possible, have them include a vivid description of the item as well as a specific memory that relates to that food.
7. Call on a few students to share their best paragraph, and discuss what techniques each student has used effectively in their writing.
8. You might finish the activity by discussing the differences between physical description and the other kinds descriptions on can do in writing: what might this look like when they don't have an object (like food) to describe?
This activity is designed for a TEC classroom. It can be modified for employment in a technology-free classroom if you make have them read it ahead of time or even display it and have students read it out loud. (It’s not very long)
Don’t let your students get hung up on Step 1. Some students have a hard time coming up with something like their top ten FAVORITES, so you could suggest that they simply list the first ten things that pop into their minds. Have some backup questions and an additional angle for fast-working students to continue working on so that they have something to keep them occupied as slower students are still completing the basic exercise.