I enjoyed reading the different ways a gate could be described. While I was reviewing the video, an engineer was in my classroom helping me with a project. He became interested in the various paragraphs. Interestingly, he disagreed with me as to which one had the best or strongest word choice. He thought the "Strong Word Choice" one was too wordy, verbose, etc. It made me see that readers bring their own background to reading. One person's excellent descriptive paragraph is another person's verbose mishmash. However, the exercise of describing 1 thing from many different viewpoints is a great idea!
I think word choice is my favorite trait out of all of them. I love reading stories that contain many descriptive words that help me visualize what the author is explaining. Use certain words help the reader focus and "get into" whatever the author has to say.
First, there's two gems contained in this video which will become posters in my classroom second semester - the chart showing the 4 "e" reasons to write (educate, entertain, etc.) and the chart describing about the model uses of word choice. Both can clearly convey to my students what it means to make strong word choices.
The theme that emerged when I watched the video was putting yourself in the shoes of the reader. If the reader can't "see" the picture you're painting with words, than the writing is not sufficient to the task. That's something that I need to do a better job of demonstrating to my students.
I also had to stop and think about the rather florrid description of the hidden garden path as shown in the video. While I was reading it, I kept thinking about how Hemingway would have described the scene. Or USA Today. Some of us have been trained to restrict ourselves to just the facts - which is mostly done in the example of the broken fence, but there's a whiff of hyperbole there, too. Maybe it's just a balancing act between what it necessary and what is too much.
I enjoyed reading the different ways a gate could be described. While I was reviewing the video, an engineer was in my classroom helping me with a project. He became interested in the various paragraphs. Interestingly, he disagreed with me as to which one had the best or strongest word choice. He thought the "Strong Word Choice" one was too wordy, verbose, etc. It made me see that readers bring their own background to reading. One person's excellent descriptive paragraph is another person's verbose mishmash. However, the exercise of describing 1 thing from many different viewpoints is a great idea!
ReplyDeleteI think word choice is my favorite trait out of all of them. I love reading stories that contain many descriptive words that help me visualize what the author is explaining. Use certain words help the reader focus and "get into" whatever the author has to say.
ReplyDeleteFirst, there's two gems contained in this video which will become posters in my classroom second semester - the chart showing the 4 "e" reasons to write (educate, entertain, etc.) and the chart describing about the model uses of word choice. Both can clearly convey to my students what it means to make strong word choices.
ReplyDeleteThe theme that emerged when I watched the video was putting yourself in the shoes of the reader. If the reader can't "see" the picture you're painting with words, than the writing is not sufficient to the task. That's something that I need to do a better job of demonstrating to my students.
I also had to stop and think about the rather florrid description of the hidden garden path as shown in the video. While I was reading it, I kept thinking about how Hemingway would have described the scene. Or USA Today. Some of us have been trained to restrict ourselves to just the facts - which is mostly done in the example of the broken fence, but there's a whiff of hyperbole there, too. Maybe it's just a balancing act between what it necessary and what is too much.