Description Exercise (9/26/7)

posted by Mr. B. and Crew

I stole this exercise from my son because I think it is an especially effective one. The idea is to write a description of something, adding no additional context or narrative element, in order to have an effect on the reader just with description. Thus, the choices the writer makes - language to use, details to include - are made with one effect in mind.

This starting point is no writing teacher's artifice. In his1846 essay "The Philosophy of Composition," Edgar Allan Poe writes that, when writing a story [i.e. a short story, not a generic term used in elementary school to uncritically identify virtually all writing and continued in later years at one's peril - Ed.], "I prefer commencing with the consideration of an effect. Keeping originality always in view... I say to myself, in the first place, 'Of the innumerable effects, or impressions, of which the heart, the intellect, or (more generally) the soul is susceptible, what one shall I, on the present occasion, select?'" (Heath Anthology of American Literature, Volume I, 1994, p. 1449)

In class, students were asked to select one of the effects listed below and write a description to create that effect in a reader. Then they repeated the exercise with a different effect in mind. After that, writers read their descriptions aloud and class members sought to identify the effect, citing evidence for their conclusions.

Now, you, too can share the Language Lab experience! Read the following descriptions of the same object(s) and identify which of the following effects the author was attempting to create. Then identify the evidence you used to draw your conclusion and explain why the author succeeded or failed in creating the effect in you. (Remember - the effect of a text is its impact on the reader; the author's own attitude toward his or her subject is called tone.)
Effects: anger, boredom, curiosity, despair, energy, [futility, grief, ] hope, [insouciance, jealousy,] loneliness.

1. A single shoe, separated from its counterpart and, therefore, from any possible purpose it might have served, rests all by itself atop a flat, out of place poetry book. A hollow, empty box beneath the book, at risk of falling off its support - a broken, incomplete podium - looks downward toward the floor as if it wants to fall if only to escape the useless exploitatioon it has been subjected to. - Ashley S.

2. A plain cardboard box perches atop a podium. It is pointed downward, but that only means it has nowhere to go but up. On top of the box, there lies a children's book, the story of the flight of a pig. Its pages are filled with possibility waiting to be soaked in by a willing reader, and on top of that sits a tiny red shoe as cute as its future or past wearer. Its bold red color draws attention to it, making it especially important to the whole of the assembled pieces. - Eunice O.

3. Plain ol' brown box on a broken podium. Recent issue of Poetry magazine dated this month. A small child's shoe. All stacked not too high off the ground but not too low either. - Maria J.

4. This awkward structure, comprised of a thin metal podium with a solitary box sitting crookedly on top, holds no actual purpose in life. On top of the box is a notebook, its cover curled towards the ceiling as if reaching for significance. And falling short in utter futility. And on top of that, like a last attempt at beauty or anything worth noting, the tiny red sneaker of an infant or a doll adorns the notebook its story never to be told, its bandoned project never to be whole. - Ann N.

5. What's up with this headless podium? Why does it sit alone on the floor by the white wall? Why do incompetent people keep adjusting its height and scratching the black paint off its stand? And that useless cardboard box lying tilted on top of it! Is this supposed to be art? What's the point of the book on the box apparently left there by supposed readers who don't care enough to keep its flimsy cover straight? And why put a single red shoe on top of a book? It all reminds me of the kind of parent who would let a toddler run around with one bare foot without even noticing. - Jessica J.

6. The object demands to be the center of attention. It's like a child at play time holding all his toys close so the other kids can't play with them, then holding them way over his head making everyone wonder how long he will stand there like that. He's a thin young fellow even with all his toys - a shoe, a jar of bugs, a book, and a box - clasped tightly in his small arms. His own mother couldn't tell who he is or what he's doing He can't play like that. She might propose that he put all his things inside the box, but he's already tilted to run off. And he will, too, if we take ouur eyes off him for a second. - Hannah B.

7. In the chilly classroom, students sit at their tables with friends, laughing and passing notes, making the best of their time in class together. Outside their circle stands a solitary black podium alone at the front of the room, head covered with raggedy cardboard and holding discarded junk items, unnoticed in student circles. It waits on the outside, waiting to become part of the conversation, waiting to be noticed, waiting to matter. Like a teacher. Waiting. - Raven L.

8. There's a single, black, tri-toed metal speaker's stand, standing. Sitting atop the stand is an empty cardboard box, having nothing, holding nothing, knowing nothing... except the broken black stand on which it sits, upside down, pouring out the entire contents of its soul. On the box is a thin volume of poetry with no audience, no one to pour its soul into. So many thoughts and ideas wrought into art, so precisely crafted, so artfully formed, and no one to see or hear or read. And on the book a shoe. One shoe, not a pair. Half of the whole with no sign of completion anytime soon. - Sloane F.

9. A bright red shoe with a little brown sole
On a thin white floppy book
On a small square box with shiny clear tape
On a tall black podium stand
With a missing top and a three-footed leg
On a carpet of motley blue
- Amanda L.

10. A lone shoe stands on top of a box which in turn rests on a high pedestal. It looks like a woman standing on a cliff waiting for her man to come home from the sea. Between box and shoe, a thin pad of paper rests looking as if it would slip to the ground if the shoe did not hold it in place. The shoe is facing sideways as though afraid to look back. - Brandon S.

Penelope, wife of Odysseus