Instruction: The Sensory/Descriptive domain of writing is that area which deals with the vivid description and feeling the writer uses in creating setting, characters, and action. Show, Not Tell is a technique developed to help you write so that you are able to create a picture in the reader's mind, to get away from the repetition of such empty words as weird, interesting, beautiful, wonderful, awesome, and boring.
Examples
Telling: The room was vacant.
Showing: The door opened with a resounding echo that seemed to fill the house. Cob webs once attached flowed freely in the air as the open door brought light to a well worn floor. The light gave notice to the peeling paint on the walls and to the silhouettes once covered by pictures. The new air gave life to a stuffiness that entrapped the room. Faded and torn white sheets covered once new furniture now drowning in dust.
Telling: It was foggy.
Showing:
The yellow fog that rubs its back upon the window-panes
The yellow smoke that rubs its muzzle on the window-panes
Licked its tongue into the corners of the evening,
Lingered upon the pools that stand in drains,
Let fall upon its back the soot that falls from chimneys,
Slipped by the terrace, made a sudden leap,
And seeing that it was a soft October night,
Curled once about the house, and fell asleep.
- excerpt from "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock" by T.S. Eliot
Telling: I was nervous.
Showing: What does nervousness look like? What does it sound like? What does it feel like? What does it taste like? What does it smell like?
Write a description that shows nervousness.
Independent Practice: Highlight areas in a partner's paper that need to be shown, not told. Type the descriptions into your paper.
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Examples
Telling: The room was vacant.
Showing: The door opened with a resounding echo that seemed to fill the house. Cob webs once attached flowed freely in the air as the open door brought light to a well worn floor. The light gave notice to the peeling paint on the walls and to the silhouettes once covered by pictures. The new air gave life to a stuffiness that entrapped the room. Faded and torn white sheets covered once new furniture now drowning in dust.
Telling: It was foggy.
Showing:
The yellow fog that rubs its back upon the window-panes
The yellow smoke that rubs its muzzle on the window-panes
Licked its tongue into the corners of the evening,
Lingered upon the pools that stand in drains,
Let fall upon its back the soot that falls from chimneys,
Slipped by the terrace, made a sudden leap,
And seeing that it was a soft October night,
Curled once about the house, and fell asleep.
- excerpt from "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock" by T.S. Eliot
Telling: I was nervous.
Showing: What does nervousness look like? What does it sound like? What does it feel like? What does it taste like? What does it smell like?
Write a description that shows nervousness.
Independent Practice: Highlight areas in a partner's paper that need to be shown, not told. Type the descriptions into your paper.
aw