Imagery

Using the five senses to write

Imagery

• The use of language to generate ideas and/or evoke mental images

• Not only of the visual sense, but of sensation and emotion as well

• ImageryImagery in writing creates images or helps you to imagine something.

Examples of imagery• Sight: Smoke mysteriously puffed out from the

clown’s ears.• Sound: Tom placed his ear tightly against the

wall; he could hear a faint but distinct thump thump thump.

• Touch: The burlap wall covering scraped against the little boy’s cheek.

• Taste: A salty tear ran across onto her lips.• Smell: Cinnamon! That’s what wafted into his

nostrils.

Creating Imagery

• Write your own example of imagery for each of the five senses

Sight –Sound –Touch – Taste – Smell –

Creating imagery

• Prewrite- come up with the name of a person, animal, monster, alien, or other being to be a character in a poem.

• Visualize your character with all five senses.

Creating poetry• Use the examples you already came up with, OR

write brand new lines and make up a poem about this character .

• You should have each of the 5 senses described at least once.

• Since we are going to illustrate the poem, use at least 5 visual images as well.

• Your poem should be at least 12 lines and divided into 3 stanzas.

• Write you NAME on the BACK of your poem

Creating images

• Now that you are finished, turn in your poem to the teacher. We are going to switch papers with a classmate now.

• Read the poem written by your classmate.• Now use the art materials to draw the character

described in the poem.• Be creative when illustrating smell and taste…

maybe your character could be saying “Yuck!” or “Yum!” in a comic book bubble for example.

Conclusion

• Illustrators: meet with your counterpart and share why you drew the character the way you did.

• Poets: tell your counterpart how the character looked different (and similar) in your mind.