Descriptive Writing - Helping Students Connect to Human Emotion

So it's 4:39am and I am sitting in my living room waiting for the clock to read 5:00 so I can leave for my 5:13 train.

My family is upstairs, still sleeping. I can hear the sounds of my 4-year-old snoring slightly. But, alas, my day has begun.

I can say with no hesitation that this is the hardest job I have ever had. In addition to being physically draining from being such a long day, it is also mentally taxing. At the end of the school day yesterday, I was standing with the principal in the main corrider of the school discussing something. He had to interrupt me to attempt to catch a student from our program (not in my class, but in one of the other 3 classes in the alternative middle school program). I heard him very politely request a word with the student. The student's response? "Nah, F*&k you, man," and he kept walking.

I know many teachers would have been shocked for a student to say that to a principal, but not us. It's par for the course. Growing a thick skin is a MUST for this job.


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One of my challenges in teaching in this program is finding a way for the students to connect with the material. The small group I have is very inquisitive. They want to know about the world.

In an effort to teach about descriptive writing and creating mental pictures for the reader, I needed to make them understand about the human condition. Because in no way were they going to be able to utilize language to convey depth of meaning without fully comprehending human emotion. I showed them about 60 minutes worth of the Boxing Day 2004 Tsunami footage. It was raw, unedited, and horrifying. They were riveted.

They asked insightful questions and wanted to know and understand more. I then launched into a lesson about earthquakes, tectonic plates and how tsunamis are formed. They got to see the scientific side and the human side. They began to understand a little more about human loss and I could see the compassion on their faces -- the compassion they so desperately try to mask by being "tough."

The writing that poured out of them following these videos was amazing. Real writers are starting to emerge -- if I can only get them to utilize punctuation. I am excited to see what more writing they have in store for me this year.


Here is the link to the Tsunami footage I showed. It is an 8 part YouTube documentary, and about 80 minutes long total. I didn't show the whole thing, but enough for the students to truly understand what happened.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y9HIXZmmSus