At the start of the semester, I explain to my students that the writers who are most successful at reaching a wide audience, or a targeted audience like bosses or clients, are distinctive and detailed. Not generalists. To be specific and unique lets your readers into the world or worldview they want to meet. Generalizations won’t give your readers that.
Then I assign a descriptive essay that wakens crucial skills for creative, business, and academic writing:
A Descriptive Essay
Tell me about a day at a job you’ve had. Describe it only through sensory perceptions. Tell me accurately what sounds you heard, sights you saw (particularly colors and degrees of light, outdoor or indoor light), smells, tastes, and textures you felt. Give me the feel of walking through this day at work with you.
Don’t tell me what the job is. Don’t tell me how you feel about being there, how you feel about those you work with/for. Don’t describe your responsibilities or instructions. Don’t describe a troubling incident on the job.
Write this in the present tense, as though it’s happening the moment you describe it.
Let me guess what job you’re describing. Don’t make guessing easy or hard for me. Your only responsibility in this assignment is to tell me what you see, hear, taste, smell, and physically feel.
This exercise focuses on the eloquence of details. Students respond positively to this assignment because they’re seldom asked to write something where the content comes only from what they already know. They get to write about themselves before I have them write about a topic I define.
Note: I had a student who complained she never had a job. I asked if she had to clean her room. She said yes. I told her to describe that. She wrote about it as though she were a hazmat worker. It was a delightful read.
–
Richard Ryal is a writing and literature professor with a strong background in marketing writing, though primarily a poet in the end. His recent poetry publications include Notre Dame Review, Sheila-Na-Gig, and The South Florida Poetry Journal. The gloom he often witnesses is still out-muscled by his love for the beauty often hidden in sight.