Helen Keller Rubric
Sensory Details
The Story of My Life
Writing Using Descriptive Sense Details, 4th Grade
Overview
This lesson is about writing with vivid, descriptive sense words. It is aligned with Iowa Writing Standard 3. A rubric is provided.
The lesson uses a passage from Helen Keller's autobiography, The Story of My Life, to illustrate the use of effective, descriptive narrative. The added uniqueness of the students will be that Helen Keller wrote of her experiences, even though she could not see or hear.
The lesson includes links to the autobiography, an online interactive site on Keller's life, a video of American Sign Language being used, a video on writing with sense words, and some writing samples.
Iowa Writing Standard
This unit focuses on the "showing not tell" concept, which fits well with the third writing standard. A rubric is attached to this section.
3. Write narratives to develop real or imagined experiences or events using effective technique, descriptive details, and clear event sequences.
a. Orient the reader by establishing a situation and introducing a narrator and/or characters; organize an event sequence that unfolds naturally.
d. Use concrete words and phrases and sensory details to convey experiences and events precisely.
Writing Using Sense Details
The OER Commons file Helen Keller is available at the link in this sentence.
This is an interactive site. For this activity, open the “Growing Up” section and find the short biography with the photo of Keller and her dog. Discuss with the students that in the photo, Helen could not see or hear.
Then open the video in the interactive “Growing Up” section. The video is of a young woman telling about Helen Keller’s early life, using American Sign Language. Have the students watch the video for a while, and then have them close their eyes. That would have been Helen Keller’s experience of the video.
The video Sensory Details will introduce students to the idea of showing rather than telling. After watching the video, connect the ideas in the video with the writing standard. Then move on to having the students write a bit about the lightning storm. Below is a sample of more vivid writing, using sense detail.
Lightning cracked across the sky in jagged bursts of light, followed by booms that rattled the bones. For a moment, we were blinded by the flash, and then the rain pounded against the window, each drop like a tiny fist demanding entry. The storm had arrived, and we were glad to be inside, safe and dry.
This unit is about writing with more powerful and vivid words. We will learn how to write using descriptive words called “sense detail”--words that connect with our five senses: seeing, hearing, touching, tasting, and smelling.
First, though, let’s learn about a special person named Helen Keller, who was born in 1880 in Tuscumbia, Alabama. Your teacher will lead you through this presentation, and you’ll have a chance to explore more later.
Now let’s watch a video about writing with sensory details. It explains how to write more vividly. Open the link below
Now let’s watch a video about writing with sensory details. It explains how to write more vividly.
In case you didn't find the video using American Sign Language, here is a link, Summary of Helen Keller's Early Life in ASL
Listen to the silence as you watch the video. Now close your eyes for a moment. This is how Helen Keller would have experienced this video in terms of seeing and hearing. It would be how she would "see and hear" the computer and the room it was in.
Now let’s watch a video about writing with sensory details. It explains how to write more vividly, "Sensory Details." Your teacher will lead you through some of the practice writing in the video.
Now, look at the sentence below.
There was a big lightning storm.
Can you write a few sentences that show the storm rather than just telling that a storm happened?
The Story of My Life, by Helen Keller
Having created some sense of an experience outside of their normal daily lives, now we are in a position to explore sense detail and to address the possibilities of describing our lives in words by using sense details, by showing, not telling. This leads to the next section where students try their hands at descriptive writing in narration.
Possible sentences to add to the description, using hearing and seeing words could be as follows:
A bright flash of lightning seared my eyes, and I felt as if some giant were taking a photograph of the tiny earth.
The loud boon of the thunder was an explosion of sound that drowned out the howling of the wind.
Ask:
Do you feel that Helen's description of the storm was lacking or less because there were no sight or hearing descriptions, or was she able to use language to describe here personal experience is a new and exciting way?
Even though Helen Keller grew up blind and deaf, she accomplished many things that you can learn about later in the interactive website. She even wrote her autobiography, The Story of My Life. In the book, she describes how one day she got caught in a tree and had to stay up there during a thunderstorm. She describes the storm without using sight or sound words! Let’s read her vivid showing rather than telling writing.
The Story of My Life, by Helen Keller, from Chapter V
One day my teacher and I were returning from a long ramble. The morning had been fine, but it was growing warm and sultry when at last we turned our faces homeward. Two or three times we stopped to rest under a tree by the wayside. Our last halt was under a wild cherry tree a short distance from the house. The shade was grateful, and the tree was so easy to climb that with my teacher's assistance I was able to scramble to a seat in the branches. It was so cool up in the tree that Miss Sullivan proposed that we have our luncheon there. I promised to keep still while she went to the house to fetch it.
Suddenly a change passed over the tree. All the sun's warmth left the air. I knew the sky was black, because all the heat, which meant light to me, had died out of the atmosphere. A strange odour came up from the earth. I knew it, it was the odour that always precedes a thunderstorm, and a nameless fear clutched at my heart. I felt absolutely alone, cut off from my friends and the firm earth. The immense, the unknown, enfolded me. I remained still and expectant; a chilling terror crept over me. I longed for my teacher's return; but above all things I wanted to get down from that tree.
There was a moment of sinister silence, then a multitudinous stirring of the leaves. A shiver ran through the tree, and the wind sent forth a blast that would have knocked me off had I not clung to the branch with might and main. The tree swayed and strained. The small twigs snapped and fell about me in showers. A wild impulse to jump seized me, but terror held me fast. I crouched down in the fork of the tree. The branches lashed about me. I felt the intermittent jarring that came now and then, as if something heavy had fallen and the shock had traveled up till it reached the limb I sat on. It worked my suspense up to the highest point, and just as I was thinking the tree and I should fall together, my teacher seized my hand and helped me down. I clung to her, trembling with joy to feel the earth under my feet once more. I had learned a new lesson—that nature "wages open war against her children, and under softest touch hides treacherous claws."
What words describe the storm using touch? Remember that touch is not just about our fingers but also is about our skin, our whole body. Were there any movement words or temperature words, which are also touch?
Were there any smell words? Taste words?
Isn’t it amazing how well Helen Keller showed the storm without describing what could be seen or heard?
If we were going to add any sight or sound description what would we show?
Writing about a personal experience
In this section, set up the writing assignment, perhaps just having them write the beginning. Once they’ve written for 10 minutes or so, as a whole class have the students share what they think is their most “showing” sentence. Ask the class which senses were used in the description.
The earlier videos and discussion should prompt the students to try writing some vivid personal experience narrative. Lead the students through the writing prompt set-up, let them write, and then have them share.
Point out how their writing already better meets the writing standard.
Depending on the teacher’s individual objectives, the student’s can write just the beginning or can continue to write the complete personal experience. A rubric is included with this activity, limited to two aspects of the writing standard. More standards could be added, of course, including mechanics.
Write about some experience you have had. Here is a short list of writing ideas below.
Riding an amusement park ride
Jumping into the cold water when swimming
Getting a hit in baseball (or getting hit by a pitch in baseball!)
What the dentist’s chair and equipment looks like (you can add some mood with words!)
Your pet doing something funny (let us see and hear it)
Hint: Don’t start with “I woke up . . .” For instance, if you’re writing about the first time you rode a bike without training wheels, maybe you could begin with the following: “The handlebars felt cold on my hands, and the seat seemed too hard and uncomfortable. I swallowed nervously.” That’s a much better place to begin than “I woke up, feeling nervous about riding my new bike without training wheels.”