QUESTION: Descriptive writing ideas??

[Kelly Knudsen]

In my 10th grade writing class we are starting descriptive writing and I am looking to use photographs, art, music, and video/movie clips as prompts for their descriptions.  Does anyone have any suggestions?

[Ryan Goble]

Have you seen the great "photo finish" series in Time Out New York - great idea to use as a model for students. Here are a few samples:
Illustration by Brian Smith Photograph by Meaghan Golden, Alphabet ...
Illustration by Brendan Leach Photograph by McLovin, East Village
Illustration by Brian Smith Photograph by Fredda Tone, West Village
Illustration by Brendan Leach Photograph by Becca Eley

You can click through them for a long time...

You might also check out Sara B. Kajder's Bringing the Outside In - the title says it is for reluctant readers but it is much more flexible than that.

Also this book is loaded with visual writing ideas and prompts - Picturing Texts by Lester Faigley, Diana George, Anna Palchik, and Cynthia Selfe.

[Felice Kaufmann]

Not sure if this is something you could use, but I follow Bud Hunt's blog, and he been publishing photos as writing prompts for every day of National Poetry Month (and did the same thing last year.) Some of the photos are really intriguing and inspiring. He's offering them as poetry prompts, but surely they'd have some other uses?
Here's his first entry for the 2010 series:
http://budtheteacher.com/blog/2010/03/31/npm-2010-here-we-go-again/

[Kelly Knudsen]

Thank you! This is awesome and exactly what I was looking for.

[Lisa Fink]

Here is an article over at ReadWriteThink.org that uses an interesting hook: http://www.readwritethink.org/classroom-resources/lesson-plans/rumm....

[Shawn LaTorre]

If you are doing a Holocaust unit, there are great photos of people releasted by the USHMM (Holocaust Memorial Museum) with a bit of their life stories attached. Students could easily develop these into descriptive narratives. There are also a ton of pictures of towns during World War II that could be written about descriptively.

I would take your writing requirement for the marking period (descriptive writing) and examine the use of descriptive elements in the novels, short stories, poems, and movies that you are using for a unit. I think it is best to tie things together in a meaningful unit (World War II, Science Fiction, European History) that ties in with social studies (ideally). You can focus on examining these elements from anything--and I would do this first--before asking students to write or create on their own. You will get better products that way.