Unit 2: Imagine With Imagery

Introduction

Writing stories is something every child is asked to do in school. Students may feel
reluctant and threatened by a blank piece of paper and a request to write a story about a given
topic. However, with some inspiration and fun activities, reluctant writers gain confidence and
eager writers gain the skills to create higher quality writing. Helping your students structure their
story from beginning to end is a great way to make the writing process a whole lot easier.
This section focuses on beginnings, endings and on meaning. How your students shape a
text, or how a text is shaped, will create certain ideas in the reader’s mind. Examining how such
effects can be achieved is an important element in the understanding of a text. Also, this unit
helps your students learn how to organize their thoughts and ideas.

Learning outcomes:
Upon completion of this unit you will be able to:
1. use your student’s sensual imagery for lively and personal description,
2. find your student’s original ways of describing objects,
3. become aware of your student’s use of imagery when they want to create a vivid
description,
4. write a compelling imagery in your student’s writing, and
5. help your students to develop their creative thinking and imagination

Terminology
 Sensual Perception
In guiding your students in making a compelling imagery, you have to develop
their sensual perception. Sensual Perception covers the use of one of the senses
such as sight, taste, touch or hearing.
 Narrative
A piece of written or oral text that describes an event in a chronological order. A
narrative usually has a clear beginning, middle and end, and may include
 conversations and descriptions. Stories, novels and ballads are all examples of
narratives.

 Sensory Experience
Experience of your students that would relate to sensation — something that you
feel with your physical senses such as sight, taste, touch or hearing.

Activities

Activity 1: WHEN I THINK OF…

As a teacher you need to train your students’ descriptive writing skills by incorporating
imagery. Your first step is to get your students talking – and you help your students focus their
discussions with an exercise you have developed. The students are asked then to complete the
phrase ‘When I think of summer…’ (But you can choose any topic that you want them to think)
They do this orally but really it is the start of the writing process as students begin to compose a
first description.
Organization:
 Small groups of between three and six participants
Materials:
 Small cards, one set per group of participant each with a sense of perception on it, i.e.
‘sight’, ‘hearing’, ‘taste’, ‘smell’, ‘touch’.

Teacher Directions
1. You ask your students what it is they associate with summer by completing the phrase
“when I think of summer…” They present these associations briefly to the other group
members.
2. Now they take a card. They re-phrase the sentence “when I think of summer…” with an
expression that includes or refers to the sense of perception on their card.
3. After thinking, your students will write in on a sheet of paper. Afterwards, your students
will read their work in the class.
Extension/Variation: They try to express a sensual perception in connection with the word on
their card by describing the sight, taste, smell, sound, feeling using other sensual descriptions
than the ones on their cards, e.g. a summery smell as a taste, a sound as a sight, etc. (For this the
cards could be reshuffled and dealt out again).
Activity 2: SENSUOUS GIFTS
First thing you get your students to write is an exercise where each student imagines they
are giving five presents to a person they love and five to a person they hate. The five presents to
a person they love will be pleasant experiences – not things but experiences like for example the
sound of a string quartet or the taste of chocolate, they’re giving them an experience for each of
their senses.

Organization:
 Small groups of between three and five participants
Materials:
 pieces of paper and sellotape or post-it stickers

Teacher Directions
1 The class is divided into groups of four to five students. In groups they brainstorm experiences
they really dislike.
2 Then your students try to connect them to the five senses. It is important that at the end of this
stage there is at least one experience related to each one of the five senses.
3 Then your students do the same with experiences they like very much or love. Again it is
important that all five senses are represented.
4. The whole class brainstorm collective terms, which can be fairly everyday (e.g. a handful of,
a lorry load of, tons of, etc.) or rather imaginative (e.g. a nostril full of, a breath of, a morning
full of, etc). These are written on small pieces of paper and hung up all over the classroom.
5 Using the collective terms they find appealing and the nice experiences they write a love
poem, with the nasty experiences a hate poem.

Activity 3: Use your Five Senses!

Imagery helps students add more detail to their writing, which makes it more effective.
In this activity, you need to have a quick review on the the definition of imagery first and give
examples that appeal to each of the five senses before proceeding to the activity.

Organisation:
 Small groups of between three and five participants
Materials

 Various objects/pictures of people, places, or things

 Notebook paper
 Pencils

Teacher Directions
1. Divide your students in small groups of between three and five participants.
2. Give each group an object/picture, notebook paper, and pencils.
3. Have your students write the name of the object/picture on their paper and write as many
different words or phrases about the object/picture that would appeal to the five senses.
Give each group about 2-3 minutes to accomplish this task.
4. Then, have the groups pass their objects/pictures around so every group has a new
object/picture. Repeat the procedure from the previous step again.
5. Continue to repeat the process until every group has looked at every object/picture.
6. Have the groups count up their words. The group with the most words wins.
7. Have the class discuss the different words they used for each object.

Activity 4 Mystery Nouns

Most narratives make the reader feel like they are a part of the story. The text provides
vivid imagery that creates a sensory experience for the reader. Review an example of imagery in
one of the novels your class has read or is currently reading.

Organisation: In pairs

Materials

 Classroom novel
 Notebook paper
 Pencils

Teacher Directions

1. Divide the class into pairs. Give each pair some notebook paper and pencils.
2. Have each partner think of a person, place, or thing and write a paragraph about it. The
paragraph should not identify the noun, but use imagery to clue the reader into the
identity of the mystery noun.
3. After each partner has finished his/her paragraph, the students should switch paragraphs
and try to guess the noun the other partner was describing.
Unit summary
In this unit, you learned how to use the experiences of your students to teach writing
skills, and that description can create a familiar context upon which students can base their
writing. Also, reading narrative prose like novels could help your students widen their
imagination, and could also enhance their writing skills. Group work can be a good way to
manage large classes. Always check students’ spelling and grammar at the end of the exercises.

Assessment
I. Identify the images, and comment on how they contribute to the poem’s theme.

I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud

By Willi am Wordswort h
I wandered lonely as a cloud
That floats on high o'er vales and hills,
When all at once I saw a crowd,
A host, of golden daffodils;
Beside the lake, beneath the trees,
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.

Continuous as the stars that shine

And twinkle on the Milky Way,
They stretched in never-ending line
Along the margin of a bay:
Ten thousand saw I at a glance,
Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.

The waves beside them danced; but they

Out-did the sparkling waves in glee:
A poet could not but be gay,
In such a jocund company:
 I gazed—and gazed—but little thought
What wealth the show to me had brought:

For oft, when on my couch I lie

In vacant or in pensive mood,
They flash upon that inward eye
Which is the bliss of solitude;
And then my heart with pleasure fills,
And dances with the daffodils.

II. Rewrite the sentence so that the description comes alive.

“The car lands awkwardly, causing it to roll.”

Questions to consider:

 “What does lands awkwardly look like? Think of an image in your mind and let’s
capture it in words.”
 “Is the car driving itself? Does the driver matter?”
 “Is enough detail provided to visualize what happened?”

Revising for Sensory Images Rubric

3 2 1
Strong Medium Needs improvement
Visualization This writing shows This writing shows This writing shows
several examples of a few examples of no examples of
writing that allow writing that allow writing that allow
the reader to the reader to the reader to
visualize what the visualize what the visualize what the
writer is trying to writer is trying to writer is trying to
describe. describe. describe.
Sensory Aspects This writing shows This writing shows This writing shows
several examples of a few examples of no examples of
writing that allow writing that allow writing that allow
the reader to hear, the reader to hear, the reader to hear,
 touch, taste, or smell touch, taste, or smell touch, taste, or smell
in their imagination in their imagination in their imagination
what the writer is what the writer is what the writer is
trying to describe. trying to describe. trying to describe
Overall Writing The sensory images This author is This author has not
With Sensory in this writing make making an attempt used sensory details
Images it “come alive” for to use sensory in their writing. This
the reader. This is a images in their writing lacks interest
fun piece to read! writing. This writing and is hard for
shows promise and readers to connect
with a little more to. This piece needs
revision will be fun a lot of revision.
to read!
Conventions The spelling and The spelling and Much of the spelling
punctuation are punctuation are and punctuation is
correct in this mostly correct in not correct. This
writing. This makes this writing. This means readers have
the writing easy for makes the writing to work hard to
others to read easy for others to figure out the
without becoming read without writing. The readers
confused. becoming confused. will be confused.