Sensory Writing Word Bank

Sensory Writing 

Sensory writing uses descriptive words that are linked to the five senses (taste, touch, sight, smell, sounds) to paint a picture with one's language. It enables you and your reader to experience your thoughts and ideas on an imaginative, creative level as if they were sharing those thoughts or experiences with you. 

Sounds Words:

banging barking bawling blaring booming buzzing chattering chiming chirping cooing coughing crackling crashing croaking crunching crying dripping exploding fizzing gasping giggling growling grunting gurgling hissing hushing laughing mumbling muttering piercing quiet rapping rasping rattling ringing rumbling rustling scratching screaming screeching singing slamming shouting silent snoring splashing stuttering tinkling wheezing whooping

Touch Words:

abrasive biting boiling bubbly bulky bumpy burning clammy coarse cool crisp cushioned damp drenched feathery fine fluffy foamy freezing furry fuzzy glassy greasy gritty gushy hairy heavy hot humid lacy leathery light lukewarm metallic mushy numbing oily rocky sandy scalding scorching shaggy silky slimy slippery sloppy smooth spongy steamy sticky tangled tender thick tough velvety warm

Taste and Smell Words:

acid acidic alkaline aromatic biting bitter bland burnt buttery cold earthy floury flowery fresh fruity garlicky hearty hot lemony medicinal minty moist moldy musty oily perfumed pickled piney pungent raw rich rotten salty scented sharp sour spicy stagnant sweaty sweet tangy tasteless tough vile vinegar

Sight Words:

agile blinding blurred brilliant bright brightness canary cloudy colorless dim dingy faded faint flat gleaming glistening glittering gloomy grimy hazy long luminous misty narrow oval round shadowy shallow shiny slim smeared sparkling square streaked striped sudsy tarnished tottering trampled translucent twinkling variegated

Colour Words:

Whites  - cream ivory pearl 

Reds - cherry coral crimson 

Pink - rose ruby salmon scarlet vermillion 

Oranges - apricot copper peach rust tangerine 

Greens - emerald lime forest olive 

Browns - bronze chocolate cinnamon hazel khaki tan 

Blues - sapphire turquoise midnight 

Yellows - amber canary gold lemon 

Purples - lavender lilac magenta plum 

Blacks - raven slate ebony

Thesis Statements Feedback

 Thesis Statements - August 28

1. An event in my life that truly shaped my identity being to scared or shy in school. As this year becoming the end, I have made friends in 6th grade and I think that I can build a great friend group and become an excellent student moving forward.

Feedback: 

• Star: Effective writing deals with complex topics and is often vulnerable. Your choice to discuss your timidity in school is a courageous selection which will prove to be rewarding for both you and your readers as they will relate when they go through similar struggles. It also allows you to reflect back on your experiences and make sense of them for further personal growth. . 

• Further development: Effective writing makes sure to clearly answer the question that has been asked. Be careful when answering the question as “being too scared or shy” is not technically an “event” although you could call it a “season” in your life. The question also asked how the “event” or “season” shaped  your identity. I find that your second sentence does not answer this question but shifts focus to how you have since made friends. 

2. An event that has significantly shaped who I was today, was when I transferred from a public school to a private school in fourth grade. It was a lot different than what I expected it to be, as well as a lot harder. Looking back at this time, this season has made me try my best to be a better student, do good in school, and be a hardworking student in the future.

Feedback: 

• Star: Effective writing approaches brave, vulnerable and life changing topics. I enjoyed your choice of topic as I believe that changing schools is a very hard experience and certainly one worth writing about. 

• Further development: Effective writing is differentiated and varied in ideas. Your second sentence says the same thing in three different ways - “be a better student” “do good in school” “be hardworking.” Try and think of other ways that changing schools affected you. Did it impact you emotionally? Socially?

3. An event that has changed my life is when I decided to start babysitting, when I started babysitting I got a peek into the lives of younger children, which I have forgotten over the years for my life. 

Feedback: 

• Star: Effective writing presents thoughtful and insightful ideas. Your choice of discussing babysitting is a unique and thoughtful selection. 

• Further development: Effective writing is sure to answer the questions presented and provide details. The question was how this unique event or season shaped or developed your identity. You said that you got “a peek into the lives of younger children” - what did you find there? How specifically did babysitting change or shape your identity?

4. An event that shaped my identity would be me traveling to another country. In that country, I learned a lot of things and even enjoyed the food there. I also came to believe to avoid certain numbers. I even learned the language of that country, which was very hard.

Feedback: 

• Star: Effective writing presents thoughtful and insightful ideas. Your choice of discussing your travels to another country is such a great choice as there are many details you can share.  

• Further development: Effective writing is sure to answer the questions presented and provide details. The question was how this unique event or season shaped or developed your identity. While you do list a lot of things that you experience there, the focus should be centered on how the experience changed you as a person. 

5. An event that has shaped my identity, is dance it has taught me to be confident, and healthy. Also meeting Elaine my most closest friend at school and in general, she is very different from people as i like to say. Meeting her has shaped how i am today, because she influenced me to be more optimistic, and have fun. 

Feedback: 

• Star: Effective writing presents thoughtful and insightful ideas. Your choice of discussing dance, an activity which is very important for you, is an effective idea as there will be a lot that you can say.  

• Further development: Effective writing is clear and approaches one idea at a time. Your thesis statement deals with two very different ideas - dance and also, meeting your friend Elaine. I would say that you should choose one topic to develop. 

Aug 28 class

I did quite enjoy today's session and I think it's good for me to record the things that happen so I can remember them for subsequent teaching sessions. I will divide some of the things that stood out to me in parts. 

Emotions

Today I did an icebreaker exercise:

What was the highlight of your week or summer? Why? How has this experience or event shaped you as you enter a new season?

A lot of the students shared that they were nervous for going back to school and some of the activities that they did to regulate this emotion. For example, one student shared that she went on a walk to calm down. I was affirming her that there is a lot of strength in being able to acknowledge the emotions one is feeling and try and do things to address that emotion. Unfortunately, a feeling like being nervous is hard to completely dispel but it is still good to do things to try and mitigate the feeling or set one's mind at ease. I find that having questions like this generate a twofold purpose - they provide a connection to the lesson as well as open up a point of discussion to be able to understand the students better and discuss their fears/address some of their emotions. These questions also create a sense of community as you can have other students share and provide affirmation for each other. For example, I had each student share something that they do to de-stress. Some students shared going on a walk, watching a movie, journaling, physical activities, and doodling. 

In the end I shared with them the value of truly taking life one day at a time and just dealing with the task, or day that is in front of them. Before we all know it, time will pass and we will be back yet again to another summer break. I did not get to share with them, but I also wanted to impart the wisdom of enjoying everyday living. Each day is a day we can never get back, and it is significant to look for the joy in the day. This is certainly (I think) a discipline, a habit - but it is one that we can grow stronger in if we practice it daily. 

Padlet

https://padlet.com/ivkmutama87/gjg5r5a4vl6ffwjw

I also very much enjoyed the Padlet activity. I gave the students this question below: 

The various events and seasons in our lives are a large part of our identities and ultimately shape the person we are growing into and who we become. Think of a significant event or season of your life that you feel has shaped your identity and who you are. Provide 2-3 reasons how this season/event has contributed to your identity.

Students had to generate a thesis statement and post it on the padlet for everybody in the class to see. The beauty of this exercise is that the responses are anonymous. Students could then share which entries resonated with them. I also realized partway through the value too of having the students tease apart each other's entries and hold the writing against a criteria. I had given the students some criteria around writing a thesis statement and then asked a student whether the thesis that they selected to read met that criteria and how. The student had to specifically tease apart the writing and hold it against the criteria that they were given. 

Advice and Nurturing Student Writing 

I find that the little bits and pieces of advice and mentoring that I give throughout the class to be helpful. Haha - well I do not know if it is actually helpful to the students but I like to think that it is. Today I told students that their writing is not something to be seen as bad or good, but rather to be seen as something that they are growing in. Writing is always about growth, even if you are a very experienced writer. Life in general, is always about growth! I told them the importance of being kind towards themselves in the current stage and season that they are in - and being kind towards their own growth process. 

Powerful Introductions - Various ways to start your introduction.

 Powerful Introductions - Various ways to start your introduction. 

• Raise a good question

• What is the difference between successful college students and unsuccessful college students? 

• Imaginary Scenario

• Imagine what your life would be like if you said everything that was ever on your mind.

• Quotation (make sure to give credit to the author)

• If you write an essay on the topic of education you could begin with: Nelson Mandela said, “Education is the most powerful weapon you can use to change the world.”

• Anecdote/Story

• I got off the train and pulled my luggage behind me.  A cab pulled up to the curb, and the driver got out.  He lifted my luggage and said, “Miss, I’m just going to put your stuff in the boot.”  I didn’t know what he meant until I saw him open the car’s trunk.  Then I realized the boot means car trunk.  I got in the cab, wondering how many other words would be different in England. 

• Powerful descriptive language and imagery

• She smiled kindly and stopped by the twisting river. Never before, looking at herself so intently in the water, had she understood who she was. Swimming had become her life. It was her passion.  

• Metaphor/Simile/Analogy

• "Working part-time as a cashier at the Piggly Wiggly has given me a great opportunity to observe human behavior. Sometimes I think of the shoppers as white rats in a lab experiment, and the aisles as a maze designed by a psychologist. Most of the rats—customers, I mean—follow a routine pattern, strolling up and down the aisles, checking through my chute, and then escaping through the exit hatch. But not everyone is so dependable. My research has revealed three distinct types of abnormal customer: the amnesiac, the super shopper, and the dawdler."

– "Shopping at the Pig"

• Surprising Fact/Research to engage reader

• Almost two-thirds of American adults at some point in their life lived in a home with at least one gun. 

• Strong, assertive statement 

• Online college classes are cheaper and more effective than in-person college classes. 

• Get Personal

• "In March 2006, I found myself, at 38, divorced, no kids, no home, and alone in a tiny rowing boat in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean. I hadn’t eaten a hot meal in two months. I’d had no human contact for weeks because my satellite phone had stopped working. All four of my oars were broken, patched up with duct tape and splints. I had tendinitis in my shoulders and saltwater sores on my backside. "I couldn’t have been happier...."

– Roz Savage, "My Transoceanic Midlife Crisis." Newsweek, March 20, 2011

• Use Humour/Joke

(sources: https://www.thoughtco.com/introductory-paragraph-essays-and-reports-1691081 and https://examples.yourdictionary.com/strong-introduction-examples.html)

Writing Samples - Olympic Style Analysis

Reading and Writing Course

Writing Samples 

Narrative Essay on Cultural Identity by Lainett Méndez

Society has an irreversible tendency to separate people into different boxes. This is how they can differentiate them and determine each person’s way of thinking. At the end of the day, each individual will decide which box he or she fits in, but this is only possible when they acknowledge how their life experiences shape their interactions with the world. With this in mind, that person would have found his or her cultural identity. The factors that influence my behaviour, the way I speak and the things I consider as good or bad form my culture. Indeed being South American has affected my identity in terms of traditions, society, demography, gender, ability, among others. As a Venezuelan, my cultural identity has been molded by my family, religion, social environment and political system. 

My country is called Venezuela, it is located on the northern coast of South America and its official language is Spanish. They have been considered to be the “happiest people in the world.” The fact that I was born in Venezuela is key in determining who I am. Usually people in South America are friendly, hardworking, and tend to express their feelings and thoughts very openly. My family lives in Valencia, one of the most important cities in Venezuela due to its industrialization and technological advances in comparison to other cities. 

Childhood Dreams by Jennifer Yee

When I was a child, I loved balloons, carousels, candy floss and my father, who shared them all with me. I never wanted more. To me, the amusement park was a place in which I was free to imagine, to indulge, even to fly. I never forgot those childhood days, but the concerns of adulthood gradually moved them to the back of my mind. 

Sometimes, though, I dream I am at the amusement park again with my father. He takes me to the clown who sells helium balloons, each tied to a long piece of white string, and he buys me a huge red balloon. My father then ties the loose end of the string around my wrist so that the balloon does not drift away, but it does anyway, taking me with it.

I forget when I last had that dream. Somewhere between my childhood and today, I have forgotten how to laugh, how to play and how to dream. Now, as a university student, I think about graduation, career choices, money and marriage - not about silly balloons, carousel rides, and candy floss. As an adult, I am smothered by the real world, and no longer have the freedom to enjoy life in the same way I did when I was a child. 

Nothing in a Name by Bartley

“Molly, dinner time!” my mother yells in a sing-songy voice from the first floor. My father calls the waitress over, “Excuse me, Molly,” he states, trying to get her attention. The doorbell rings, and I answer it, “Hi, I’m Molly,” says the cheerful little girl scout standing at my doorstep. 

Names are universal identifiers; they shed no light about one’s personality. They are labels, they fail to display our identity because identity is a unique part of what makes you, you. Names are a terrible way to understand someone’s identity because names are regularly replicated. In my sixth grade class, there were three Mollys. We all had different backgrounds, different religious affiliations, and different personalities. If our names displayed who we are, wouldn’t our identities all be the same? Instead of staring at names and trying to understand their meaning, one should focus on a person’s personality, for personality depicts our identity. In fact, I have learned from experience to not infer one’s identity based on their name. For instance, in middle school, I was mutual friends with a girl named Kassidy. One Tuesday afternoon, my friend Katy told me that Kassidy was going to sit with us at lunch that day. I shrugged my shoulders and replied with a casual “okay.” Before Kassidy walked in, I had a whole image of her in my mind: blond hair, cute pastel coloured clothes…

Aspects of Writing

Subject matter

• Clear - can easily identify what the writing is about

• Depth? - Does the writer provide examples and reasons behind what they are saying

• Interesting and thought-provoking - do people care about this topic?

Voice and Style

• Complex word choice (ex. Instead of using the words "very" or "really," use "profoundly" or "deeply")

• Not wordy (use of big words without understanding the meaning or words are out of place)

• Descriptive - appeals to the five senses (taste, touch, smell, sight, sound)

• Figurative Language - simile, metaphor, onomatopoeia, imagery  

Structure

• Clear topic sentence and supporting sentences

• Varied sentence length (ex. "I like chocolate" "He is kind")

• Logical progression - one thought builds into the next thought

Grammar

• Run-on sentences? 

• Do not fit too many ideas in the same sentence

• Topic sentence first and supporting sentences 

• Proper punctuation? (Capitalization, periods)

• Subject-verb agreement

• Complete sentences

• Ex. I agree. What exactly are you agreeing with? I agree with the statement that says it is important to maintain your identity because...

• Spelling 

Olympic Style Analysis - Reading and Writing Summer Course

Olympic Style Analysis - Reading and Writing Summer Course 

Effective writers examine while reading 

I have taken on teaching a writing and reading course on Saturdays this summer through a local tutoring agency and feel compelled to showcase my thoughts on how the lesson went today. 

For today's lesson, I had the students read through three different writing excepts - these are excerpts I had taken from various essays I had found online (I will link them below). I made sure to choose writing excerpts that were quite different. Even though all three essays were on the topic of "identity," I wanted to make sure that each piece was varied in terms of style of writing, subject matter, voice etc. I chose pieces that would appeal to different readers in distinct ways. I truly believe, and kept reiterating to my students, that the most effective writers, are effective readers. It is important when you are reading for the sake of improving your writing, to actually take time to examine and study various forms of writing and ask yourself questions - What works? What doesn't? Why do I like this piece over another one? What is it about the way language is used? 

I wanted to get the students to really begin to pick out and pinpoint, describe and put a name to what they find most effective about what they read. If they are intrigued and interested in a certain style, they must ask themselves why and actually take the lengths to describe what they find to be the most effective. This is a process that they then transfer over to their own writing. I let my students know that effective writers in essence, borrow, imitate, combine, and create based on what they have read - based on what has excited them about other people's writing and from there they generate something new, their own voice. I also let my students know that the purpose of writing is to communicate the power of their own unique and original voice. I told them that they are singular in their thoughts, opinions, views, and backgrounds and that there is nobody else on the planet who thinks the same way they do or can offer the same things to the world as they can. Writing is thus about getting out their own  particular colour or shade of thought and shining it out onto the world - for the world to enjoy, be challenged by, find affinity and commonality in - and so much more! :) 

I thought this activity went particularly well and I was pleasantly surprised as God helped me come up with some random ideas throughout. There were three excerpts. We read each excerpt twice and took turns reading. I told the students that (in my view) reading is not only done once but twice, three times (even more!). I let them know that effective reading is rereading as it is only when you read something a few times that one can truly grasp, understand, and pick up various understandings. Each time they read, they are to slow down, truly take in the language, loiter, understand how one idea connects to the previous, question what they have read, linger in the writing, hangout there, make sense and meaning. As they read again, they can start breaking language down - hmmm, they used this word instead of this word, what is the author really trying to say here, they used a particular type of description - why? How does this create the meaning of the piece? Reading and rereading is about losing oneself to the world of that novel, that essay, that article - it is unique to the individual how they will lose themselves in the text, but they are to do it. They are to use their own creativity and imagination to do so - their own background, experiences, their own previous play in language, to connect ideas, to go places, to experience more through the text. The text is their own bouncy castle or spring board in which they can reach amazing heights within themselves. 

Gamification of lessons! - This was one of the God ideas - but I told students to pretend that this is the "Reading and Writing Olympics" - as the Olympics are happening right now. They have to rank each piece of writing and give a Gold, Silver or Bronze medal to each piece BUT they must choose ONE aspect of writing in which to make their examinations by - subject matter, voice and style, structure, or grammar. I had searched online previously and looked up - "what makes effective writing" or "what makes good writing" and these were the categories that came up. I then made a kind of criteria sheet for the students to use when they are analyzing and critiquing these pieces (which is at the end of the document that I will link below). Another God idea was to have each student focus on ONE area to critique rather than to critique each of the various areas. I find this helpful as it allowed each student to narrow in on one aspect and concentrate their thoughts more effectively as I find if they focused on all categories it would become quite confusing. It is important to chunk and break things down. 

Now I don't know if I was reading the room well but I think the students enjoyed this activity quite a bit. I felt like having them rank the piece gave them some type of autonomy and power to make choice and exercise their opinions. While student answers were similar, their choices were different. For example, where one student chose bronze for a certain excerpt, another student chose silver. I thought that was great as it enabled students to give the reasons behind their choices and the other students had to listen. This also enabled students to exercise critical thinking skills and actually analyze and understand why they like one piece of writing over another. For example, one student said that the writing, "Childhood Dreams" by Jennifer Yee, enabled her to paint a picture in her mind when she was reading it as the language was descriptive. She said that the topic was very interesting to her and examples presented were quite specific. Another student said that they were tied between "Childhood Dreams" and "Nothing in a Name" but it was ultimately the grammar in "Nothing in a Name" that made them finally choose "Childhood Dreams" instead. Another student said that "Narrative Essay on Cultural Identity" was a bit confusing in the beginning and they weren't exactly sure where the piece was going. 

The breakdown of the excerpts was effective. I told students that this is what I would like them to do with their own writing - to break down what they write and examine it through a lens of what makes effective writing. In this sense, students are always revising and improving their writing and becoming effective communicators through their words. This exercise took the full 1.5 hours and I do think it could have gone even longer if I probed and asked more questions. There were many times where I was trying to have students be more specific with what they liked and didn't like. 

I think if one wanted to extend this activity, they could have students do some of their own writing and have other students perhaps (anonymously) rank and examine each other's pieces and give their reasons why. In a classroom, one could do this activity, and perhaps even give awards or medals like the academy awards and rank different students' writing in various categories - best figurative language, best grammar, best subject matter, best depth, etc - I think that could be really fun! I feel that there is so much more I can say but I will end my thoughts here for today. Overall the ideas here went well and it was a good class.

Writing Samples 

https://forlackofwonder.blogspot.com/2021/08/writing-samples-olympic-style-analysis.html 

Frustration

A few weeks ago I started tutoring a boy! His father contacted me through Craigslist as I had put out an ad saying that I help with one-on-one tutoring. This adolescent has been classified with autism. 

Today in our session we were talking about theme within the short story he is reading and I pryed and probed a little more based on the theme he had suggested for the story. I asked him "who" - which character in the story feels this/that way based on the theme he proposed. 

I asked the question maybe five times and there were a lot of pauses,  perhaps breaks in his thinking and shutting down. In the end he hit his head on his table obviously resigning himself to his frustration of not being able to answer the question in that moment. He is a very capable boy and so extremely clever - I am not just saying this! He brings up topics and takes our conversations to some very interesting and unique places. I believe strongly he could answer the question and in the end he did with more prompting and encouragement from his father. 

I feel led to write about this experience, however as my mind is stayed on this whole concept/idea of frustration. I understand that this boy has been labeled as having autism thus there are some types of developmental differences that perhaps make it more challenging to process information and think on his feet and thus shut down, but I am still led to explore the idea of frustration on more of a social level. 

Typically we become frustrated I think due to pressures - perhaps we feel that we are not meeting a certain expectation we have placed on ourselves, somebody or something around us is not measuring up to a type of standard - we have an idea of what we think should happen and that thing is just not happening. In the case of Uriah, he perhaps wanted to express his thoughts quickly and just could not put A and B together, maybe he was having breaks in his thinking, distracted by other thoughts or perhaps and very likely so, he was thinking about the label of having Autism coupled with the ideas that have been flying around that he is not "so great" in English - all of these pressures were perhaps barriers that made him shut down in the end. He had to take a break in our session and went to talk with his father. 

I am reminded in this session of what I learned in the teaching program called "growth mindset" - a type of mentality that is encouraged in children where they celebrate the process, the step by step successes rather than just the outcome. I feel that there is too little of this right now in our education system or perhaps in trying to make this transition we are still focused on the older system which is very much results driven and oriented. Even though Uriah has been classified as having autism, I still believe that there are some aspects of his behaviour which were learned or he was conditioned to believe. 

For example, why is it that when he could not answer the question, he became frustrated? Where did all this pressure come from? His father was with Uriah and myself on the call for a bit after this happened and was encouraging him to pinpoint or pick out the causes for his frustration. I feel that this is a good strategy and a good step towards being the master over one's emotions. When we are able to understand the root causes for our anger/frustrations then we can actually address the underlying problem and not the symptom (the emotion) that results from the issue. I was also encouraging Uriah to be patient with himself. I think it is so important and necessary to be kind towards ourselves, slow down, take a step back, breathe, and start again. Frustraton like every other emotion, will come and go, it is how you handle the emotion that makes all the difference in the world and knowing that you can move forward, that there is a possibility to move forward and knowing the right steps of how to do so is paramount.