Description Essay
Read the student sample below, the excerpt by E. B. White as well as those
assigned from the list on page xiv of The Norton Reader. A quick reading of
first paragraphs of the entire selection in the Reader would be helpful.
Then, write a description of a place in such a way that the description conveys a recognizable feeling, delight, revulsion, nostalgia, disappointment for example, more through the use of concrete and specific details than by direct statement of attitude.
Your paper will be assessed for style, specifically variety, verbs, beginnings, passive voice, sentence length and word choices.
STUDENT MODEL - Becky Smith
I stopped my bicycle in front of the old green house, convincing myself that
I "was in the neighborhood," instead of several miles off track
as I knew I was. No car was parked in the drive (I was looking for my mother's
familiar purple Volkswagen), yet I refrained from peeking into the windows
or looking over the back gate. The small ash sapling had been cut down in
the front yard, leaving room for its elderly parent, and the shrubs were neatly
trimmed, the dying lawn raked. That lawn had been dying for years-it never
grew any greener or any browner-but we'd always left the leaves on to cover
the sickly brownish-green. The rose bushes had been removed from in front
of the porch, and no bicycles lay toppled among them. The garage door was
repainted, the awnings replaced, the curtains drawn tightly against the noon
sun. At least the ancient apricot tree, with its twisted trunk, still stood
gravely by the porch. I fought back the impulse to climb it again, but I stayed
with my bike-sixteen was too old to be climbing trees in other people's yards.
The Brazilian pepper tree was still a tangled clump to the side of the yard,
and I strained my eyes to look for the tattered blankets of my brother's fort
inside. At the height of its glory, the fort was the perfect hiding place
against neighborhood boys and the local ghosts and werewolves. We could watch
salesmen at the door from there, unobserved, and then draw back a green branch,
let it go, and make a terrifying crash and howl as he went by. (A mountain
lion was known to live in the hillsides nearby.) the tree was infested with
spiders, but that only made our arduous journeys to the center of the tree
worthwhile. Letting my gaze leave the tree, I noticed that the back gate had
been repainted, and several trees were missing from the dense jungle of the
back yard. I bit back a sob of anger for the loss of the trees, for the trees
were living beings, our friends. The trees had lived there longer than we
had, longer than the house had stood, longer even than the city had existed.
I left then, for without the trees, there was no reason to stay.
PROFESSIONAL MODEL - from "The Greatest City on Earth," E. B. White
After Boston, almost unwillingly I settled down in what called itself the
greatest city in the world. Not the city, but the work to be found there,
drew me. The jagged towers forming an asymmetrical harmony out of a thousand
individual decisions had there celebrated postcard beauty, but the streets
below needed a new Dante to bring hell up to date. New York is a city where
millions are forced to work in the center, piled high in skyscrapers, borne
up and down in crowded elevators in close body contact ("Make room for
one more"). They must be taken there and removed each night through underground
tunnels of lurching subway cars, where they stand packed, dull-eyed with fatigue
and noise, self-concentrated and hostile, hurrying home to steel shelves where
on unpaid furniture they spend their evenings watching the gray glare of the
television screen. It is a city whose towers house businessmen who hire psychologists
to study human fears which can be exploited to sell deodorants or tooth paste,
and where glamour is set by synthetic personalities trained to appear relaxed
and natural before hot lights and stop watches, so that they can create the
right air of conviction about products they themselves never use. It is a
city where people do not do, but watch: crowd stadiums to see others play
baseball or football, go to galleries to see what others paint or concerts
to hear others play, and pay comedians to bring them laughter.
