Description as mind control: Using details to help readers visualize your story

Good writers help their readers visualize their stories by including vivid details. Students will listen to passages from Gary Paulsen's novel Hatchet, draw one of the images from the passage, and identify which details Paulsen uses to create these images.

A lesson plan for grades 3–5 English Language Arts

By DPI Writing Strategies

Learn more

Related pages

• Focusing activity to begin novel: Hatchet by Paulsen: Students will visualize how Brian Robeson will feel when he crash lands on the deserted island at the beginning of the novel, Hatchet. This whole class period will be spent using prior knowledge of survival skills.
• Describing words: Go Away, Big Green Monster: The students will use describing words in their writing based on the book Go Away, Big Green Monster while integrating math concepts about shapes.
• The Wish Giver: Cause and effect: Through a discussion of the characters in the novel The Wish Giver, by Bill Brittain, the teacher will teach the students to identify and analyze the cause/effect relationship and its importance in reading comprehension.

Related topics

• Learn more about Gary Paulsen, Hatchet, descriptions, details, language arts, listening comprehension, literature, novels, and read-alouds.

Help

Please read our disclaimer for lesson plans.

Legal

Learning outcomes

Students will:

• learn that stories are driven by vivid details
• identify descriptive details in a story

Teacher planning

Time required for lesson

1 hour

Materials/resources

One copy of the novel Hatchet by Gary Paulsen

Activities

Modeling/Mini-lesson

1. Ask the students if they believe that another person can take control of their minds. Almost all of them will say, “No.” Some of the more thoughtful students may offer the idea that someone can cause someone else to feel fear or joy or embarrassment. They will admit that actually controlling what goes on in someone’s mind is somewhat different.
2. Distribute a sheet of blank drawing paper (8 1/2×11 is large enough). See that each child has access to crayons or colored markers.
3. Show the students the book, Hatchet, by Gary Paulsen. Explain to them that it is a survival story about a boy named Brian, who is the sole survivor of the crash of a small plane. Tell them that, as he regains consciousness after the crash, he looks around him.
4. Explain to the students that they will hear an excerpt telling what he sees as he looks around. Ask them to listen carefully to the selections. Tell students that after they have listened to the selection, they will be asked to draw a picture of something that Brian saw. Read the description of what Brian sees. Begin with the last paragraph on page 40 that begins “The rocky ridge was rounded?” and read through “Hundreds of them jumping and slapping the water.” on page 41. (Be sure to stop with the above sentence because the next part of that paragraph moves to what Brian remembers about the city.) Re-read the excerpt. Then ask the students to draw a picture of something that Brian saw.
5. Most students will draw one of three things or a combination of these things. The most popular illustration is usually the mound of sticks and mud rising up out of the water. The other two most popular pictures are the “V” shape of ripples behind a beaver and the jumping fish.
6. Ask the students to share their pictures in groups of about 4 or 5 other students. Instruct them to compare their pictures. Notice if two or more students drew the same thing.
7. Ask the students to raise their hands if they drew the mound. Then ask them to raise their hands if they drew the beaver swimming with the ripples behind it. Last, ask them to raise their hands if they drew the fish jumping. (Some students, who have drawn a combination of these things will need to raise their hands more then once.)
8. Point out to the students that there are many similarities among their pictures. How did that happen? Did Gary Paulsen control the students’ minds? Point out that Paulsen’s vivid details created the same pictures in different readers’ minds.
9. Ask the students to listen to the reading of the following selection:
   

   As the storm rolled in from the west, the white frame farmhouse stood out sharply against the ever-blackening sky. The wind came in gusts and whistled around the edges of the house on its way to turn the two weeping willow trees in the front yard into wild, slashing whips. The clouds boiled and churned as they tumbled over one another in their race across the sky. Two trembling baby rabbits peeked from under the base of an old stump and quickly retreated to safety in the soft darkness of their nest.
   When the rain began, it did so with a vengeance, ripping across the yard and smashing into the house. The windows, already trembling with the force of the wind, now became huge drums as the rain beat relentlessly against them. So fierce was the force of the rain, that leaves were sliced in two, and some were even ripped from the branches.

10. Ask the students to name the most vivid image they envisioned while listening. Some will say the black clouds. Some will say the trees. Many will probably list their most vivid image as the rabbits. Point out again that the words controlled their minds. Use this opportunity to emphasize the importance of careful word choice when we write. Also emphasize the importance of developing a wide vocabulary from which to choose.

Guided Practice

11. Another interesting lesson may be based on having the students analyze which words in the two selections in this lesson actually create the most powerful mental images. They can work on this in pairs and choose the three or four words they feel are the most powerful. For each word (or phrase) chosen, the students should be prepared to give an explanation as to why they feel those words are important to conveying the author’s intended meaning. Strong connections can also be made to reading comprehension. Creating images as we read is an important reading strategy.

Independent Practice

12. Have students select a section from a previous draft and create a word picture that includes vivid details. Students will read their revised draft aloud to a partner, who will draw a picture based on the details.

Assessment

1. Can students identify words in the Hatchet excerpts that create vivid images for readers?
2. Can students revise their own writing to include vivid images for their readers?

Supplemental information

• Writing Feature: Supporting and Elaboration
• Writing Process stage: Revising
• Writing Environment: Expressive
• Writing Genre: Personal Narrative, Imaginative Narrative