I always learn new ways to "turn a phrase" when I read great descriptive essays. What literary devices caught your attention in at least one of the essays? What would you like to mimic in your own writing?
When Charles Yale Harrison decribes how shell works during trench warfare, I felt as if i was there when the shell landed beside me. I could feel the emotion.
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Arshpreet Singh
3/25/2012 06:33:58 am
I think you should explain more about it.
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Inderdeep Lidhar
3/12/2012 10:35:10 am
"Suitcase Lady," written Christie McLaren, has a large amount of descriptive tendencies. She writes with a lot of diction and at the very end uses a great example of irony. She incorporates a quote by the Suitcase Lady saying that she tries to help people, yet she says nothing about the fact that no one is helping her. It makes me see the good in humanity. I would love to mimic the way McLaren uses an ironic sentence to end her piece. It really gives impact to her essay and leaves her readers speechless.
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Avneet Parmar
3/12/2012 11:45:00 am
Thierry Mallet uses a lot of similes in "The Firewood Gatherers". He describes the great-grandmother having hands "as thin as the hands of a skeleton" (p.113). Personification is also used when he describes the tents "shivered and rippled under a faint touch of northern breeze" (p. 111). His literary devices give the reader a good image of the characters and the surroundings and I would like to mimic them in my own writing.
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Stephanie
3/12/2012 02:23:54 pm
"Hurricane" by Anne Michaels not only has great description, but a very interesting story that caught my attention. She had a metaphor describing how "The rain hit; needles into [her] face" (103), and I could almost feel the stinging rain.
I would like to mimic how she describes what she feels or sees into my writing.
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Allison
4/2/2012 01:29:48 pm
I found that the way she decribed the rain made me really connect with the feeling of it hitting my own face while i was reading aswell
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Inderdeep Lidhar
3/15/2012 09:50:21 am
I agree, the comparison of a hurricane to the Holocaust is an interesting one. Before I read the essay I thought it wouldn't make any sense but it really does.
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mandy
3/30/2012 06:29:21 am
"August 4" by Karen Connelly uses all five senses in paragraph 3. She also uses personnification when she says "A blade of grass comes to life and glides onto the stones." Her mimics helped me visualize the scenes better which i would like to use in my own writing.
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Shaurya Tandon
4/1/2012 01:25:03 pm
Suitcase Lady by Christie Mclaren reflects the life of a homeless person very effectively. The little descriptions such as "her big rough farmer hands", deep lines of her face, her bleary eyes, her love for music reminds me of the "pigeon lady" from "Home Alone", anyone know who i'm talking about? The essay describes various hardships that a homeless person faces routinely. Think about all the people on Hastings Street and think about yourself. You are in a much much better position than them. Yet we are still unsatisfied of what we have. Be appreciative of what you have because someone out there is missing what they don't have and what you do
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Allison
4/2/2012 01:19:58 pm
"Hurricane" written by Anne Michaels i thought gave great depth in detail and sucessfully protrayed the ressemblance of darkness in the atmoshpere of a hurricane to the darkness of the Haulocast. The literary device that caught my attention like stephanie's, was the metaphor Michaels wrote when "The rain hit, needles into [her] face". When i read that i related the feeling to the storms i've encountered, and could really feel the freezing rain hitting my face. Something i would like to try with my own writting after reading this essay is trying to write something that will connect with the reader like for example : the feeling of rain hitting your face.
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Bronwyn
9/29/2014 05:19:06 am
I did not understnad the meaning of the phrase "who dares to believe that he will be saved twice?" said by the mother in "Hurricane" by Anne Michaels
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