DESCRIPTIVE PARAGRAPHS WRITING EXERCISE

Short descriptive paragraphs written by Form 5 students at SMK Muhibbah, Sandakan, Sabah. It was a series of 3-double period 'Show not Tell' lessons getting students to describe emotions through observing body language.  

1.  The first lesson engaged students in categorizing 'show' phrases under different categories of emotions.  Students, working in groups, were assigned two adjectives related to feelings and they had to identify as many phrases as possible from jumbled-up slips of paper.

An interesting observation made was that students were able to understand some difficult phrases by looking up keywords in the dictionary to help them put the words into the correct categories.

2.  The second lesson had the students demonstrate emotions through body language while other students shouted out suitable words or phrases to describe the actions with a group representative to record the words or phrases on the board.  Kind of like a game of charades.   It really helped them  to understand and differentiate between a telling and a showing sentence.  

At the end of the lesson, they produced a descriptive paragraph based on the telling sentence assigned to them.

3.  In the third lesson, they revised and proofread their paragraphs by rephrasing vague verbs with strong action verbs, general adjectives with specific ones that appeal to the 5 senses, adding dialogues and further information.  

Categorising phrases

Writing a descriptive paragraph

Writing a descriptive paragraph

Voila!  Students' descriptive paragraphs...