Commonsense Composition

1.1. Descriptive Essays http://www.ck12.org

at Disneyland. Additionally, remember to stress why the place being described is important to you regardless of the
organizational scheme you choose.

Review Questions

1. Write a descriptive essay about your home town. Describe the town and indicate why it is important either to
   you or to society as a whole.


2. Write a descriptive essay about one of the original towns settled in New England by the early colonists (i.e.
   Massachusetts Bay Colony). Describe the location and environment of the town, paying close attention to how
   the location of the colony was integral to the colonists’ survival.

Object

By now, you may have noticed a pattern when it comes to organizing a descriptive essay. As you remember,
you organize a descriptive essay about a person or place based either upon the characteristics associated with the
person/place or an event associated with the person/place, and an object descriptive essay is no exception to this
organizational scheme. When writing a descriptive essay about an object, you must first decide why you have
chosen this specific object to write about. In answering this question, you will know how to organize your paper.
If you decide that an object is important to you because of the characteristics the object possesses, then you would
organize the body of your paper around these characteristics or reason. However, if an object is important to you
because it was part of a significant event in your life, then you would produce body paragraphs that explain the event
in chronological order.

For instance, image you wanted to write a descriptive essay about a tree at a local park. Consider the two ways of
organizing this essay described in the table below.

TABLE1.4:

Organization Type Characteristics Event

Criteria

a. Good for climbing

b. Tire swing

c. Displays the change in sea-

sons

You received your first kiss from

your first crush under this tree

Explanation You would organize your paper

around the main reasons why this

is your favorite tree with each of

these characteristics serving as a

body paragraph.

You would organize your paper

around this event and how it has

made this tree more important to

you.