On the El to Chicago, Cambria Litsey found herself intrigued by a passenger’s shoelace. Normally, a shoelace wouldn’t have been so interesting, but after a descriptive writing assignment, Litsey noticed the untied, yellow-green neon lace of a man’s shoe.
“I was listening to my music and getting in the zone when this guy’s shoelace caught my eye, and I thought back to the descriptive writing lab,” Litsey of Minnesota said. “I started paying more attention to the detail of the shoelace and thought about how I could write about it.”
After going through the basics of descriptive writing in a lecture at the National High School Institute - Journalism, instructor John Kupetz told students to find a random person, observe and write what they saw.
“It gave me a chance to be creative after a week of so many news workshops,” Litsey said.
While Litsey was excited to observe, others weren’t.
“When I saw on the schedule descriptive writing, I was really bummed because I like news writing,” Shefali Luthra of California said. “But writing the assignment was actually kind of fun. It made me feel like one of those poetic creative author types, and that euphoria sort of evaporated when Mary Lou returned my draft and killed it.”
Even though it wasn’t her favorite piece of writing, Luthra said that the assignment was a valuable learning experience because it helped her describe without editorializing.
Casey Peeks of California finds herself interested in observing people now.
“It was my favorite article I wrote so far, even though I felt like a creeper,” Peeks said. “I felt relieved that I wouldn’t actually have to talk to anyone.”
At the assignment critique, Kupetz highlighted some of the interesting sentences in students’ work, such as:
- “The man reaches for the stretched handles of the plastic bag, wipes his rear end for the remains of nature’s eyelashes and walks away.”
- “His tongue pokes at his cheeks like a groundhog popping up from its hole. It continues to do so until it is satisfied.”
“The sentences were hilarious, but they left a lasting impression,” Litsey said.