Writing WorkshopWriting a Descriptive Essay

Assignment

Prewriting

Choose a Character

Consider Audience and Purpose

Gather, Evaluate, and Organize Support

Write Your Thesis Statement

Practice and Apply

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Assignment: Write an essay in which you describe a character from literature. Your character can come from a novel, epic poem or play.

Build on the description of your character in the poem by visualizing him or her in action, as if in a movie. Then, add layers of your own description—speech, thoughts, feelings, and actions—until the character comes to life as a real person.

Writing a Descriptive Essay

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Choose a character from a narrative poem or an epic poem that creates a distinctive impression on you.

• A major character appears throughout poem.

• A minor character appears briefly at important point in poem.

Writing a Descriptive EssayPrewriting: Choose a Character

Beowulf Gilgamesh Hector

Hector’s wife in the Iliad Grendel’s mother

Beowulf’s fate is sealed at his final encounter with the dragon.

Focus on one scene or action that is important to the character.

Writing a Descriptive EssayPrewriting: Choose a Character

Grendel’s mother fights savagely with Beowulf but is finally slain.

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Your audience:

Writing a Descriptive EssayPrewriting: Consider Audience and Purpose

Think about:

• what your audience already knows about your character

• what you want them to learn from your essay

• teachers • classmates

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• which character would be most interesting to you and your audience

Writing a Descriptive EssayPrewriting: Consider Audience and Purpose

Your purpose:

To expand exact words and phrases from a narrative poem into a descriptive essay

Think about:• what makes this character

especially interesting or deserving of a detailed description

• any insights you gain from your detailed description of this character [End of Section]

Writing a Descriptive EssayPrewriting: Gather, Evaluate, and Organize Support

Write down exact words and phrases from the poem that describe how your character looks, speaks, thinks, acts, and feels.

“Then he drew himself up beside his shield. / The fabled warrior in his warshirt and helmet” (297–298)

Beowulf

These specific details from the poem will be the basis for your essay—its skeleton.

“Then he drew himself up beside his shield. / The

fabled warrior in his warshirt and helmet” (297-

298)

Place exact words or phrases quoted from the poem within quotation marks.

Place line numbers from the poem in parentheses.Show line breaks with slashes.

Writing a Descriptive EssayPrewriting: Gather, Evaluate, and Organize Support

Use narrative details and descriptive details to expand on:

• the sequence of events depicted in the scene—its plot

• the character’s thoughts, actions, and appearance in the scene

Writing a Descriptive EssayPrewriting: Gather, Evaluate, and Organize Support

Add to the words and phrases you have taken from the poem.

Writing a Descriptive EssayPrewriting: Gather, Evaluate, and Organize Support

Present your prose description in an order that is logical and makes sense to you. Three common ways of organizing information are

• Chronological Order

• Order of Importance

• Spatial Order

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Writing a Descriptive EssayPrewriting: Write Your Thesis Statement

The thesis statement sums up what you think about your character and guides the rest of your essay.

As Beowulf faces the dragon for the last time, his appearance, actions, thoughts, and feelings show how this noble warrior faces what he believes is certain death.

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Use the preceding instructions to

• select the novel, epic, or drama and a character to describe

• establish your purpose and tone

• gather and organize narrative and descriptive details

Writing a Descriptive Essay

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