Top grade description–11+ student model🌻
Does it create a clear picture?
Today, I would like to share a beautiful bit of description one of my students wrote.
Notably, the aim wasn’t to be descriptive and they wrote a short story. Nevertheless, their writing would do well as a descriptive piece too.
Although students sometimes are asked to write descriptions and sometimes narratives, it’s very difficult to write a good description without narrative and vice versa.
I stress with my students it’s a false dichotomy, and that in every piece of writing it’s best to describe while you narrate.
With that in mind, here’s the opening of my student’s short story along with my feedback.
Top grade description—11+ student model
I was enjoying myself at the woods. My Father always brought me here before my school days started, to keep me out of "mischief". But I didn't mind: there were just so many things to do to entertain myself. There were butterflies to chase, trees to climb, flowers to smell, and rabbit holes to peer through in the spring and summer; leaves to crunch and catch if they were falling from the tree-tops in the autumn; snow-angels and snowmen to make, and many more objects to create using the snow on the forest floors in the winter.
This is what my student brought to class and it hasn’t been revised. Note also that this is just the opening of a short story they wrote.
I love this description because it’s vivid, engaging and technically impressive, but not in a ‘look at me’ way.
This is how I want my students to write in general, in contrast to model descriptions I read online sometimes which are awfully abstract.
Because fundamentally, a good description evokes a clear picture in your mind’s eye.
The most important question to ask when evaluating your descriptions should be:
‘Does this description give the reader a clear picture?’
With this in mind, I want to highlight what the description above does well and how it would help the student gain top marks in an exam.
It’s full of beautiful, concrete images: ‘There were butterflies to chase, trees to climb, flowers to smell, and rabbit holes to peer through in the spring and summer.’
You can picture all of this clearly in your imagination.
The vocabulary is subtly sophisticated. The student shows off through their verb choices: there are ‘holes to peer through’ and ‘leaves to crunch’. I also like the use of infinitives here, as they invite the reader to imagine those scenes and it sounds playful.
There is variation in sentence structure, used to good effect. The paragraph starts with a short, snappy sentence and ends with a long, descriptive, multi-clause, compound–complex sentence that gives a montage of scenes across the four seasons.
The seasons are separated by semicolons, which gives the sentence structure. They also use a colon effectively in the previous sentence to introduce an explanation. Both pieces of punctuation are used correctly and with sophistication.
Lastly, the descriptions are specific and zoom in on details. These details evoke a range of senses (sight, sound, touch and smell) to help immerse the reader in the setting.
If your think your child could benefit from this kind of feedback, I’m available for one-to-one English tuition and can help them with their creative writing.
Simply reply to this email or email me at morgan@bluefishtuition.com to discuss tuition further.
Best wishes,
Morgan