Specificity Is a Key to Memorable Writing: Teaching About the "Spectrum of Specificity"

Writing with Specific Details:

Levels of SHOWING on a Spectrum of Specificity

By Susan L. Lipson, Author & Writing Teacher

[This is a lesson I use with my students. You can find similar lessons on my TeachersPayTeachers online store page.]

        VAGUE/ “TELLING” àààààààààààSPECIFIC/ “SHOWING”

1) She seemed nervous.

                                     2) She hid her nervousness, but the cup shook in her hand.

                                                         3) "Her face revealed nothing, but the tea                                                                             lapped the inside of the cup when she                                                                                         passed it to him."
                                                                                           (Lee Kochenderfer)

Notice the increasing specificity in the details above, resulting in a deeper, vivid word picture, one that makes the reader think, rather than just passively absorb information. Details are tools to engage readers in a verbal experience.

  

EXERCISE 1: Create your own spectrum of specificity, starting with the vague words and adding two levels of depth to produce a vivid word picture.

VAGUE/“TELLING”àààààààààààààSPECIFIC/“SHOWING”

1) His heart ached over losing her.       2)                                                                         3)

1) She acted nonchalant.                    2)                                                                          3)

1) He embarrassed her.                    2)                                                                           3)

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          After completing the above creative writing lesson with me in his private class, young author Sam wrote an essay about what he learned--an additional exercise designed to practice both essay-writing skills and introduce metacognitive analysis to enrich the depth of his learning. I present to you, below, the excellent essay he wrote, which is my way of SHOWING, NOT TELLING what my student took away from this two-part lesson.

An Essay on "The Spectrum of Specificity" Exercise
by Sam X., age 13

I stared at the vague descriptions on the paper. Each description changed from a simple statement to a vivid picture placed in the reader’s mind. By the last level, the description required inference to fully understand it. This lesson shows how specificity works and why it is important by comparing vague and specific descriptions.

Without specificity, readers soak in information but do not have to actively think, defeating the purpose of reading. An example of a vague description is “His heart ached over losing her.” However, by turning it into a more specific description, “Laying flowers on the tombstone, he couldn’t help remembering Sarah’s deep brown eyes,” the reader must infer that the girl he loves has died, and that his heart aches for her. Instead of telling the reader straight, letting readers think enhances their experience. “She acted nonchalant” is another description which needs improvement. Instead, “She tried to hide her wistfulness as Joe held hands with Karen and kissed her.” From the latter description, it seems that she also likes Joe, but tries to cover it up. The former description, however, is a boring statement that readers will not enjoy. To write an interesting and engaging piece of writing, writers must use specificity and show, not tell.

This lesson provided an example of the difference between vague and specific phrases, and allowed me to create my own “spectrums” of specificity. Knowing how to do this greatly enriches my writing and engrosses the reader.

A Favorite Lesson To Share: Memorable Words About Memorable Words

NO CLICHÉS HERE!

Seventh-grader Syon read aloud, to his lesson partner and me, his description of a boy character who had just finished grueling football tryouts and was “feeling like he was on Cloud Nine.” I pointed out that the simile added nothing to the reader’s experience because it was a cliché without imagery and without power. His lesson partner—also a good friend now—nodded in agreement. I suggested that he come up with his own fresh words, as a soccer player himself, to describe this moment, “when a young athlete is sweaty, tired, aching, but deliriously happy for having given his all—you know what I’m talking about, don’t you?”

While he was thinking of a new simile, his lesson partner, Daniel, offered, “What about: ‘he felt a rush of dopamine’?” Immediately, with flashing dimples, he giggled and waved his hand dismissively as we all burst into laughter.

“Not exactly multisensory imagery there, Daniel,” I joked, “except maybe for a scientist who understands dopamine!”

“See, you are from another planet!” exclaimed Syon. (Syon often teases Daniel that he is from another planet because of his extensive vocabulary and uncommonly sophisticated diction.) “That simile completely sums up how you think!”

“That simile and the dimples,” I added. “Erudite and adorable, simultaneously.”

“What does erudite mean?” asked Syon.

I looked at Daniel whom I could see was about to answer with a definition. “Daniel?”

He, of course, answered, “Erudite means knowledgeable, scholarly….”

And Syon replied, “Of course it does.”

When the next round of laughter subsided, Syon’s eyes lit up and he announced, “I just came up with a simile: ‘feeling like a dog who had finally caught his own tail.’”

“Wonderful!” I exclaimed. Daniel nodded. “What a perfect way to show that after the boy almost exhausts himself with a seemingly impossible task, he finally succeeded. What a great simile!”

And what a great lesson day!

Emulation as Inspiration: A Student's Poetic Response to My Poem

     On my other blog, "Writing Memorable Words," I published a poem titled "View from Another Bench," which I recently used as a writing prompt with one of my previously featured middle-school students, eleven-year-old Aashi. I was greatly impressed with her apt emulation of my theme about how the assumptions we make about others often lead to our misguided actions, which, in turn, lead to our embarrassment. I proudly present to you here Aashi's poem, born of her response to mine: "Tied." Feel free to leave your comments for her below (and if you want to read my poem, the prompt, just click on its title, above, and the link will take you there).

Tied

by Aashi M.

The little girl bends down                          

to tie her shoes,

with a pout on her face.

My mother would tie my shoes for me

when I was her age.

But her parents are busy.

So instead, I walk over to her,

untying my own shoes,

to show her how to tie them.

"First, make bunny ears," I tell her,

making two loops with my own laces.

"Then--"

"I know how to tie them," she cuts me off.

I stare at her, shocked, 

as she finishes tying her shoes with perfect loops.

Making me look like a fool,

tying my own purposely untied shoes,

as she breezes past me.

     Emulation exercises provide an excellent launching pad for creative writing; having an actual poem or prose piece to model as a prompt can spark ideas much faster, in my experience, than a conceptual prompt. For instance, if I had given as a prompt only the description of my poem (written above), merely telling her the theme of "View from Another Bench," I guarantee that my student would have not experienced her "aha moment" before my delighted eyes. If a writing teacher provides vague or purely conceptual guidelines, young writers end up toying with possible ideas and false starts for a while before venturing, tentatively, to create a first draft. I have found that by offering my students a first line to launch their original works (and then they can modify that given line later in the final revision), or by presenting them with another poem or piece of fiction to emulate, their inspirations arrive quickly and the resulting written works generally have depth and clarity. Furthermore, the young authors have more confidence that they have fulfilled the goal of the writing prompt.

Exploring Tone Through Poetry

  Tone can show itself in a single word or phrase, evoking different contexts and implications. One of my creative eighth-grade students, prompted by my own poem, "Aah" (which explores the various ways that one can hear and interpret the exclamation "aah!"), wrote this thought-provoking poem:

by Enan A.

OHHH!

The sound of an epiphany or…

A scream of someone who stepped on a spider

Ohh…

The sound of disappointment or...

The end of that awkward conversation

OH?

The sound of someone who wants to know more or…

The sarcasm of someone who is not falling for the other person’s tricks

Enan's poem allows us to hear the exclamation in different ways, and to view different contexts--positive and negative--for each context. This is a poem that begs to be read aloud and enacted. I will certainly share it with future students!

How To Add Fun to Writing Short Essay Responses to Literature: Have Them Write About Each Other's Works!

THE PROMPT: Write a paragraph about a theme in the following poem, using Susan L. Lipson's mnemonic device, E-IEI-O (Establish topic; Illustrate with quotation; Explain illustration and its context; Interpret implications of deeper meanings; Overall conclusions about how those implications relate to the theme).

The Defiant Man

by Rupin M.

The rain batters a person continuously,

While the man wallows in pain

And the people in their houses laugh.

The rain batters him harder and harder.

The fear of sickness reaches his brain.

The man decides he will not let the rain make him sick.

He defiantly puts up an umbrella

So the rain stops,

And the people are silent.

That poem, written by one of my 12-year-old students, in response to a poem from my book Writing Success Through Poetry, clearly impressed one of my other students, Aashi, age 11, so I decided to turn that poem into a response-to-literature exercise for her. I instructed her to refer to the poet formally, as if he were a famous poet. Please note that the poet is actually HER BROTHER! (:

Here is her E-IEI-O response to "The Defiant Man." I consider both the poem and the short essay exceptional. These writings appear here as written by the students, without editing from me except for the addition and subtraction of a few commas. 

The theme of the poem “The Defiant Man,” by Mr. Rupin Mittal, is that often what it takes for people to gain confidence to defend themselves is the very need to defend themselves. However, when people get rid of insecurities and gain enough confidence to put up defenses against the enemy, they can defend themselves. The lines “While the man wallows in pain/ And the people in their houses laugh” show how not everyone will sympathize with people about their problems. Some will simply laugh at the lack of assertiveness. Sometimes this laughter and criticism can help people build up the will to defend themselves. Mr. Mittal writes, “He defiantly puts up an umbrella/ So the rain stops/ and the people are silent.” This shows that the bullies and bystanders may laugh at people who are defenseless, but once they gather the courage to defend themselves, those bullies may no longer be able to put them down. [written by Aashi M.]

Using excellent creative writing pieces by other students as prompts has definitely inspired awe and awesome writing. Kids find essay writing about another writer's work more meaningful when they know that their written response is actually being heard by the author. And the authors feel successful at having clearly communicated their visions or messages, knowing they have left memorable words in their readers' minds.

Writing by Emulation: Using Student Writings as Prompts for Other Students

     "Without _____" was the prompt for a poem in which the poet imagines a life without a certain possession, condition, luxury item, ingredient, or anything we might take for granted. As example poems, I shared three "Without..." poems, written by my students over the years: one about life without sugar (with lines such as, "Sweet Tarts would only be tart"); one about life without the color green ("the name we use to remember the colors of the rainbow would be missing his middle initial: ROY BIV"), and one (by me) about life without adjectives ("a thesaurus would not only sound like a dinosaur, but also be extinct, like one").

      Ethan, a nine year old, found this prompt very inspiring: he wrote these two final drafts in his notebook. I have retyped them below. Note that the odd spacing in one of the verses in the first poem was written in the shape of a smartphone; and that one blank page interrupted the second poem, on purpose.

Without Smartphones
by Ethan 

Without smartphones, people would
need to walk to talk
to their friends!

Without smartphones, you would
need to write letters
instead of e-mailing!

Without smartphones, people would
need to go outside
to play instead of
playing games
on their phones!

Without smartphones, people would
need to draw instead of
taking pictures 
with their phones!

Without smartphones, you couldn't
talk to your friend or
cousin in Singapore!

Without smartphones, people would
need to check on the calendar
to know what day it was!

Without smartphones, people would
go outside more,
and play more board games.

Without smartphones, people would

need                                                   to
    
go                                                      out-
 
si-                                                       de

to                                                       che-

ck                                                       the

wea-                                                   th-

e                                                           r

and wouldn't know where they were
without Google maps!



       And now, here's the other "Without..." poem by Ethan:

Without Writing

by Ethan

Without writing
the world would be
disastrous.

Without writing
people would not
read books.

Without writing
you would walk into
a store and say,
“Can I have
that candy
in the red
package that
has a rainbow on it?”

Without writing
Books would
be pages with
pictures and
nobody
would
understand.

Without writing
this poem would
be this:

                                               [HE LEFT A BLANK PAGE HERE]






A world without writing
Would be a disaster.