Go to a favorite (or interesting) place on campus (or in the city) and sit there for thirty minutes taking notes. Be sure to jot down details as they relate to all of your senses: sight, sound, touch, scent and even, if applicable, taste. Then take these notes and craft a description of this scene (100-150 words). This shouldn’t be a laundry list. Put us in the scene. In your description, be sure not to mention the location you are describing. In class you will listen to volunteers' descriptions aloud and we will try to guess the location. This assignment is meant to help you develop your narration skills, a set of tools you will use when drafting this first essay.
Here is something like what I want:
I pick up the telephone, listen to the dial tone, and then return it to its hanger. The Doobie Brothers song, “Blackwater,” plays on the jukebox. The coffee is bitter—too long on the burner. Here comes the lady who will ask, for the third time, “Honey, do you want a topper.” I hold my hand over the cup, feeling the condensation rise into it and force a smile. “No thanks.” She probably has six children, all of them boys. When leaving, I get my change and tip a whole dollar. Outside the sound of air brakes pepper the air. I smell oil.
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