Blog #13: Reflect on today's experience

The most difficult thing in a descriptive essay is organization. Most writers have trouble figuring out where to start, and what direction to go in. This essay we are beginning to work on is descriptive, but it is also narrative. Thus, I spent today’s class talking about a timeline.

If a writer uses a timeline when he or she puts together a descriptive, narrative essay, more energy can be spent on the description and content of the essay than on trying to figure out where to start. I have already read everyone’s essays, and it was pretty obvious to me which students didn’t read the assignment, were absent on the day that we talked about the timeline, or did not tell his or her tutor about the assignment. The students who wrote the essay like a ‘normal’ essay tended to have an introductory paragraph that talked about what vlogs are and the purpose behind vlogs. However, if a student actually wrote the essay according to the instructions, the introductory paragraph would have simply included information about the creator of the first vlog, and sensory details about the opening of the vlog. Nowhere in the instructions did it say to explain what vlogs are or why people create them.

The descriptive essay assignment required that the writers use a timeline and break the first vlog into 3 pieces: the first minute, the middle minute, and the last minute. The first paragraph of the essay was supposed to describe the first minute, the second paragraph of the essay was supposed to describe the middle minute, and the final paragraph was supposed to describe the last minute of the essay. Then students were supposed to complete the timeline by adding paragraph two, which was the time between the first and middle minutes. The fourth paragraph would have been a description of the vlog’s time between the middle and last minutes.

The most difficult part of the essay (for all the writers) was to include all types of sensory information. Some students just wrote everything the vlogger said. These students forgot visual details. Some students just summarized everything. Those students were guilty of including NO sensory details. Some students included tons of sensory details. Those students wrote AWESOME papers.