Pleasant/Unpleasant Description of the Place: Choose a place you can observe for an extended period of time (at least
20-30 minutes). Use all of your senses (sight, hearing, touch, smell, even taste if possible) to experience the place, and
record all of the sensations that you experience. As you record your data, you may wish to note which details naturally seem
more positive, negative, or neutral, in terms of tone. (For instance, a stinky and overflowing trash barrel swarming with
flies in a nearby alley might seem more inherently negative than a little white bunny rabbit hopping playfully across the
lawn.) Then, you will use this information to help your write descriptions of the place: one positive, one negative. Both
descriptions should be factually true (same real time and real place), but you will want one description to be positive in
terms of tone and the other to be negative. In addition to including the information and sensory details you’ve collected as
the basis for these descriptions, you will also use the Writer’s Toolbox to create your two contrasting impressions for this
assignment. (The Writer’s Toolbox is explained in the Lecture Notes section of this unit.) As you revise and refine your
descriptions, please be sure you are “showing” your readers your place (really putting the readers “there” in the moment and
in this scene), rather than simply “telling” them about it. You will also want to try to eliminate unnecessary linking verbs
as much as you can, incorporating verbs that show “action” whenever possible.
2. Rhetorical Analysis: Looking back at your descriptions, analyze how you created these two very different impressions of
the place (one positive, one negative) without changing any of the facts. How did you make your place seem so positive in one
paragraph and yet so negative in the other paragraph, without changing the facts? Discuss how you incorporated each of the
tools from the Writer’s Toolbox, and cite examples of this from each of your descriptions. (This analysis should be at least
400-500 words in length.)
3. Reflection: In one to two paragraphs, cnsider at least one of the following questions: What have you learned about writing
through this assignment? How might you apply this knowledge? Has this process of using the Writer’s Toolbox affected your
vision of various information media–for instance, television and print news sources, magazines, etc.? If so, how so?
