This report is a descriptive analysis of the Common Core State Standards (CCSS), intended to determine which content is eligible for the Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium's end-of-year summative assessment for English language arts (ELA) and mathematics in grades 3-8 and high school. The high school standards analyzed were those in grades…

Presents an exercise in descriptive writing that shows how to take a subjective statement and support or deny it using a common body of factual observations. (PA)

In this experiment in description, students in a high school honors English class were asked to select a surrealistic painting and capture it in writing. Their compositions were given to art students who tried to reproduce the paintings from the written descriptions. (SJL)

Describes an activity to encourage students to write with specific details. Notes that (at the beginning of each class) students briefly jot down three things that have made them feel good on that particular day. Notes several other benefits of this activity. (SR)

Describes reviewing the basics of descriptive writing by having students compare the images described in E. B. White's "Once More to the Lake," with those in the film "On Golden Pond." Students then write a descriptive paragraph, from an internal or external perspective, about a magazine advertisement chosen for its sensory appeal. (HTH)

Explains a descriptive analysis exercise based on Chapter 99 of "Moby Dick." Notes that students are given a description of a coin, asked to draw the coin, and then freewrite about what they and their classmates have drawn. States that the exercise is intended to illustrate the relationship between objective and subjective description.…

Intended for use by high school journalism instructors and school newspaper and yearbook sponsors, this booklet contains articles dealing with various elements of feature story writing. The first article describes the development of a set of criteria by the Journalism Education Association (JEA) for teachers to use in evaluating feature stories,…

More than 7,000 answers to the question "What can I write about?" are offered in this collection of writing topics for high school students. The topics are categorized in 12 sections: (1) description, (2) comparison and contrast, (3) process, (4) narrative writing, (5) classification and division, (6) cause and effect, (7) exposition,…

Discusses using comics in high school and college writing and English classes to teach figurative language and other literary terms and techniques such as style and descriptive writing. Describes several activities and notes benefits of using comics in this way. (SR)

Presents a descriptive exercise, also useful for technical writing, that provides a real reader and a strong sense of the nature of descriptive writing. Students are given sketches of an art piece that they must describe for a museum for identification. (HTH)

Presents two assignments that are designed to help students (at the high school and college levels) to develop a sense of place while building skills to improve their narrative writing. Includes the assignment sheet. Describes how students create a Michigan Travel Guide from their final drafts. (SR)

Describes a class writing exercise for high school and college English classes (which functions well early in the first semester), which emphasizes a basic idea (that close inspection of a subject will reveal that there is a lot to say about it) by having students describe in detail a person's face, first as a class and then individually. (SR)

Three studies assessed the relationship between expressive writing (poetry writing and journal keeping) and ego identity development among high school and college students. Poetry writers were more likely to be in the identity achiever status. No differences were found between students keeping personal journals and those who had not. (Author/GDC)

THE FOLLOWING IS THE FULL TEXT OF THIS DOCUMENT: LEVEL: High school and college. AUTHOR'S COMMENT: I used this mini-unit to initiate the class in working effectively as a peer group. Moreover, the task I assigned demands that students develop an awareness of their audience's needs by providing an immediate and concrete response. THE APPROACH: (1)…

Describes a writing activity in which students imagine how a certain land area can become a world-class tourist attraction. Outlines how the assignment is carried out and its impact on the development of descriptive writing skills. Provides student response to the actual activity. (HB)