Goal for the day: For students to understand how to create packed images
We’ve been talking about moving away from abstraction in your writing through concrete images. What makes images grade-A concrete? The senses. Good writing contains sense details that transport us into the circumstances of the story. Once we’re in those circumstances, once we’re in the dream of the writer, emotion comes out of us. This is part of the magic of good writing.
But all concrete images are not created equal. What we want are packed images. What do we want to pack into images? Story. If we include too many descriptive details nothing makes an impression. The key is knowing which details matter and which we can leave to the writer’s imagination.
The details we want are the ones that suggest a story, that answer the five W’s: who, what, when, where, and most elusively, why. Today we’re going to look for packed images in writing and stories and then practice on our writing vandalism posters.
Assignment for Friday, September 5th
No assignment - we pushed the due date for Writing to Truth to Monday.
We’ve been talking about moving away from abstraction in your writing through concrete images. What makes images grade-A concrete? The senses. Good writing contains sense details that transport us into the circumstances of the story. Once we’re in those circumstances, once we’re in the dream of the writer, emotion comes out of us. This is part of the magic of good writing.
But all concrete images are not created equal. What we want are packed images. What do we want to pack into images? Story. If we include too many descriptive details nothing makes an impression. The key is knowing which details matter and which we can leave to the writer’s imagination.
The details we want are the ones that suggest a story, that answer the five W’s: who, what, when, where, and most elusively, why. Today we’re going to look for packed images in writing and stories and then practice on our writing vandalism posters.
Assignment for Friday, September 5th
No assignment - we pushed the due date for Writing to Truth to Monday.