Description

The essays below provide such accurate sensory detail that you can experience the subjects through words alone. You can learn how to write good description from these websites:

All writers in this collection speak for themselves—and themselves alone.

A visual representation of this collection exists on Pinterest.


Sarah Kendzior and Umar Lee, writing for Politico Magazine, describe life in Ferguson, Missouri.

Description • Times & PlacesMixed PersonDiscussion Questions & Writing PromptsConnect with Kendzior | with Lee


Novelist Edwidge Danticat describes a meal that she will never forget.

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In this piece from the Los Angeles Times, reporter Garrett Therolf depicts the resting place for a victim of child abuse.

Description • Times & PlacesThird PersonDiscussion Questions & Writing PromptsConnect with Author


Reporter Chinki Sinha describes the lives of women who work in a red-light district in Mumbai, India.

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Author Tiphanie Yanique describes Vega Baja, Puerto Rico, the place where her grandmother was raised.

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Transcendentalist Henry David Thoreau describes the animals that he encounters during his two-year-long experiment of living a simple life in nature.

Description • Humans & Their AnimalsFirst PersonDiscussion Questions & Writing Prompts