1. Imagery and Sensory Details

3. What is Imagery?
Imagery is the use of vivid descriptions to create pictures inside the reader’s mind.

4. What are Sensory Details?
Descriptive words that appeal (attract or influence) to the 5 senses to create “word pictures” in the readers mind.
They help the story come alive!!

5. What are the five senses?
Hearing
Sight
Touch
Taste
Smell

7. What kind of examples of sensory details are these?
The birds sang sweetly.
The tinkling of broken glass.
She shrieked with joy.

8. What kind of examples of sensory details are these?
As stinky as a dirty diaper.
He reminded her of her grandfather, a scent of peppermint and tobacco.

9. What kind of examples of sensory details are these?
The sour leftover impression of vomit.
As salty as a potato chip.
Thick, not-too-sweet chocolate, with a hint of orange.
The bitterness of getting her mouth washed out with soap.

10. What kind of examples of sensory details are these?
The bright green leaf glistened in the sunlight.
The students at El Cajon Valley High School shined in the hall with their bright red and blue school colors!

11. What kind of examples of sensory details are these?
She caressed the cool, smooth cover of the laptop.
The lotion gave her baby-soft skin.
He was tied tightly, and the rough bark gouged his back.
It was as soft as rabbit’s fur.
The biscuit was as hard as a rock.

12. Mary dug her fingers into the cracked leather of the seat as John killed the squawk of the siren. They peeled around the corner onto 2nd street and screeched to a stop in front of the house.
A surge of adrenaline threatened to close off Mary’s throat, and she concentrated on breathing slowly, methodically. She leapt from the car and dashed around it to follow John through the keening gate and up the path. The butt of her Beretta firm and familiar against the palm of her hand, she scanned the small yard.
Knee-high grass poked out from between corpulent bags of trash and brown beer bottles. The rusty corpse of what had once been a Ford pick-up rested on cinder blocks in the corner. The sagging fence leaned against it The caller had said there should be a set of steps leading to the basement around the corner. John took the stairs three at a time. “Police! Open up!” He kicked the door, and the lock gave way with a splintered groan. Musky air draped her arms, damp and sticky, and the stench of human waste triggered her gag reflex. John’s light stabbed into a dark corner, illuminating a tottering stack of cardboard boxes intermixed with garbage bags and an old desk missing a leg She clicked on her own light and shone it into the opposite corner. Rats scurried to escape the beam, their claws scritching across the cement floor.
There, wide-eyed, hands tied behind her back and duct tape over her mouth, lay AnnaMarie. She was hyperventilating, but alive. Definitely alive.
“Oh, thank you, God!” Mary exclaimed.

13. Let’s Practice!

14. Practice 2: Directions
Rewrite the following “sense-less” sentences using sensory details. Be creative! Use your imagination!

15. Practice 2: Sentences The pizza was delicious.
The fans enjoyed the game.
It was raining outside today.
I ate the nachos.
The students clapped during the movie.
These are my very old tennis shoes.

16. Warm-up Directions
Norman Rockwell, a famous 20th century American painter, created an astonishing 321 covers for “The Saturday Evening Post,” each portraying typical American life and values. His covers were so successful that when his art appeared on the magazine’s cover, 50,000 – 75,000 additional copies of the Saturday Evening Post sold at newsstands.
For each of the Rockwell paintings that follow, create a list of sensory details for each picture. Then write a descriptive paragraph on the slide that follows using your sensory detail list. Be creative and use your imagination to describe the scene in each picture.

17. Warm-up 1
Sight:
Hearing:
Touch:
Taste:
Smell:

18. Warm-up 2
Sight:
Hearing:
Touch:
Taste:
Smell:

19. Warm-up 3
Sight:
Hearing:
Touch:
Taste:
Smell:

20. Warm-up 4
Sight:
Hearing:
Touch:
Taste:
Smell:

21. Warm-up 5
Sight:
Hearing:
Touch:
Taste:
Smell: