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.


After Ferguson: St. Louis’ Decaying Black Suburbs Are About to Be Forgotten. Again.

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

Description • Times & Places • Mixed Person • Discussion Questions & Writing Prompts • Connect with Kendzior | with Lee


Crabs

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

Description • Times & Places • First Person • Discussion Questions & Writing Prompts • Connect with Author


Finally, a Gravestone for Little Viola Vanclief

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

Description • Times & Places • Third Person • Discussion Questions & Writing Prompts • Connect with Author


Men, According to Prostitutes

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

Description • Love & Relationships • Third Person • Discussion Questions & Writing Prompts • Connect with Author


The Other Side of the Living Sea

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

Description • Times & Places • First Person • Discussion Questions & Writing Prompts • Connect with Author


Winter Animals

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 Animals • First Person • Discussion Questions & Writing Prompts