ELA5, CSS, Sferrazza

Sample A

This is expository writing. It explains or informs the reader. You find this kind of writing in textbooks. When you are doing descriptive writing, it can be helpful to research the subject you are describing. Seeing photos and reading detailed information can help hone your description. Make sure to focus on using your five senses when you do descriptive writing. If it starts sounding like a research paper then you are doing expository writing.

Sample B

Yes! You picked a winner! This is writing that describes the worm. There are literary devices like similes and alliteration. There are strong verbs and adverbs. The writing helps you visualize the worm.


Sample C

This is persuasive writing. It’s used to convince someone or encourage them to take action. Sometimes descriptive writing is used in persuasive writing to help paint a picture in your mind -- in hopes of bringing you over to the author’s point of view.

Sample D

This is narrative writing which you will be doing in the following unit. Narrative writing tells a story. There is some overlap because descriptive words are found in narrative writing. In this unit, the focus will be on your describing skills – not creating a plot or story.

As you can see, there are many kinds of writing. Make sure you stay focused on descriptive writing for this unit.