Using Multiple Senses in Writing

When teaching, how many of your students tell all about what they see in a scene? The visual is popular in young writers, but it's certainly not the only way to provide details in a story. We have five senses, so a writer who only includes the visual is short changing his or her readers. At a writers' conference, I was told that every time a character enters a new scene, that scene should be described with at least three senses.

To make students aware of multiple senses, I give them a handful of highlighter pens and ask them to color code their writing as follows:

• sight - green
• hearing - orange
• touch - pink
• smell - yellow
• taste - purple

• emotion - blue

After highlighting the senses used in writing, something is always missing, and it's usually not what the students sees.

Imagine a scene in the forest.

Sure, students can write about the green leafy canopy above, but how about including the sounds of the wind blowing those leaves and the crunch below their feet as they wander through the woods?

Or students could write about how they shiver in the cool breeze that spreads the scent of pine through the forest. Smell is quite powerful in writing because it often connects the reader to a memory. While smell provides the memory, taste means a challenge to the novice writer and is often the hardest sense to incorporate into a scene. When kids write about taste, make sure the taste has meaning in whatever is being written, rather than something thrown into a story for the sake of including the sense of taste. It is better to leave taste out altogether than to add it in a way that doesn't work for the reader.

I've also included emotion because a story with no emotion will come off as flat. After all, we are usually writing stories with main characters, and the more relatable the character, the more we will care about where they go or what they do.

Including multiple senses in writing is like colorizing a black and white movie. For a fun and productive lesson, have your students critique their own writing for senses and then work to add whatever is missing. Be sure to share the results!

If you are interested in teaching students to write using multiple senses, below is a link to a PowerPoint lesson that does just that.

Using Senses in Writing

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Thanks to Kate Hadfield Designs for the clipart. 

Kate Hadfield Designs

Using Specific Nouns in Writing

I've often told my students to close their eyes and imagine a dog. Next, I ask them what they see. There are usually as many different answers as students in the room because writing about a dog just doesn't point our readers in any set direction.

However, if I ask them to see a golden retriever puppy, they know what to imagine, if they've been lucky enough to know one. When it comes to writing, the author wants to lead the reader into what it is that they see. That is why my second blog tip is to use specific nouns in writing.

Rather than writing about candy, try saying chocolate. Of course, chocolate is not enough. Maybe Hershey bar would be more specific or Hershey bar with almonds. See the difference?

To teach students how to use specific nouns, I like to throw out vague nouns and see what they can do to make them more specific.

• girl
• chair
• sign
• book

Which is better?

The girl sat in a chair under a sign and read a book.

OR

The two-year-old girl climbed into the wooden rocking chair, under the Furniture Department sign and studied the golden retriever puppy in her cardboard picture book.

Now, it's your turn to teach your writers how to use specific nouns!

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If you want help with this skill, I have a resource for you.

Using Strong Nouns & Verbs

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Southwest Logic

Making Inferences

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