Sunrise Classroom #2 (BLUE)

1. Was is it difficult to complete the above assignment (part two) without ‘explaining’ or telling the situation?

I thought it was - particularly the part where I had to describe the panic that ensued after my mother realized that she had left the beans to boil on the stove for too long! Since panic is an emotion, it is understandably less concrete and thus more difficult to explain using only sensory details. I tried my best, but I know I didn't cover every single aspect of the feeling due to being restricted to only objective, perceptive statements.

2. Did the exercise trigger your imagination, make you want to write about any of the characters you reported on?

It definitely did! I think that using only descriptive details to describe a certain situation makes the scenario more clear in your mind, since you are forced to picture every aspect of it rather than making sweeping statements. Some things which I would not have realized otherwise were brought to light as a result of this exercise, which helped in provoking my creativity as I found out what I could actually do if I twisted this word or used a particular way to describe a smell. I also became very aware of connotations - words such as "scent" and "fragrance" convey a much more positive impression than "stench" and "odor". These really help in terms of determining how a writer wants his/her reader to think about the situation.

3. Which of the 5 senses focused on in this lesson did you find easiest to use in your Part one of the assignment? Which is the toughest to add in a story?

The senses of sight and hearing were fairly easy to include, as those are the two senses we seem to be most aware of at any given point in the day. Touch was slightly more difficult, because people are not usually aware of it unless they suddenly get pricked, bumped against, or scraped, but it was easier to write about than taste and smell, which are generally only employed when dealing with food. The use of those last two senses would be somewhat restricted in a story, especially if the story did not include a scene that involved food.

4. Take a moment and look at a few of your pieces in your portfolio. Now that you've conditioned your mind to focus on sensory details, do you see any areas in your work where you might apply what you've learned in this lesson? Explain why or why not.

I think this sort of exercise would be very helpful for non-fiction, especially for the personal essay/memoir genre (but not so much for the informational, didactic type of non-fiction unless the situation calls for it). One of the things that's always stood out to me the most about great personal memoirs is the fact that the reader is literally brought into the writer's world, and is able to see how the writer perceives things and learns how to think like the writer. I'm reminded of Helen Keller's Story Of My Life, which is essentially her autobiography - her descriptions in terms of how her teacher taught her the definitions of words were fascinating, even though she obviously was lacking in both sight and hearing (two of the most important senses).