Imagery and Sensory Details
What is Imagery?
Imagery is the use of vivid
descriptions to create pictures
inside the reader’s mind.
What are Sensory Details?
Descriptive words that appeal (attract or
influence) to the 5 senses to create “word
pictures” in the readers mind.
They help the story come alive!!
What are the five senses?
• Hearing
• Sight
• Touch
• Taste
• Smell
What kind of examples of
sensory details are these?
The birds sang sweetly.
The tinkling of broken glass.
She shrieked with joy.
What kind of examples of
sensory details are these?
As stinky as a dirty diaper.
He reminded her of her grandfather, a
scent of peppermint and tobacco.
What kind of examples of
sensory details are these?
The sour leftover impression of vomit.
As salty as a potato chip.
Thick, not-too-sweet chocolate, with a
hint of orange.
The bitterness of getting her mouth
washed out with soap.
What kind of examples of
sensory details are these?
The bright green leaf glistened in the
sunlight.
The students at El Cajon Valley High
School shined in the hall with their
bright red and blue school colors!
What kind of examples of
sensory details are these?
She caressed the cool, smooth cover of
the laptop.
The lotion gave her baby-soft skin.
He was tied tightly, and the rough bark
gouged his back.
It was as soft as rabbit’s fur.
The biscuit was as hard as a rock.
Mary dug her fingers into the cracked leather of the seat as John killed
the squawk of the siren. They peeled around the corner onto 2nd street
and screeched to a stop in front of the house.
A surge of adrenaline threatened to close off Mary’s throat, and she
concentrated on breathing slowly, methodically. She leapt from the car and
dashed around it to follow John through the keening gate and up the path.
The butt of her Beretta firm and familiar against the palm of her hand, she
scanned the small yard.
Knee-high grass poked out from between corpulent bags of trash and
brown beer bottles. The rusty corpse of what had once been a Ford pick-up
rested on cinder blocks in the corner. The sagging fence leaned against it.
The caller had said there should be a set of steps leading to the basement
around the corner. John took the stairs three at a time. “Police! Open up!”
He kicked the door, and the lock gave way with a splintered groan.
Musky air draped her arms, damp and sticky, and the stench of human
waste triggered her gag reflex. John’s light stabbed into a dark corner,
illuminating a tottering stack of cardboard boxes intermixed with garbage
bags and an old desk missing a leg.
She clicked on her own light and
shone it into the opposite corner. Rats scurried to escape the beam, their
claws scritching across the cement floor.
There, wide-eyed, hands tied behind her back and duct tape over her
mouth, lay AnnaMarie. She was hyperventilating, but alive. Definitely alive.
“Oh, thank you, God!” Mary exclaimed.
Let’s Practice!
Practice 2: Directions
Rewrite the following “sense-less”
sentences using sensory details. Be
creative! Use your imagination!
Practice 2: Sentences
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
The pizza was delicious.
The fans enjoyed the game.
It was raining outside today.
I ate the nachos.
The students clapped during the movie.
These are my very old tennis shoes.
Warm-up Directions
Norman Rockwell, a famous 20th century American
painter, created an astonishing 321 covers for “The
Saturday Evening Post,” each portraying typical
American life and values. His covers were so
successful that when his art appeared on the
magazine’s cover, 50,000 – 75,000 additional copies
of the Saturday Evening Post sold at newsstands.
For each of the Rockwell paintings that follow,
create a list of sensory details for each picture. Then
write a descriptive paragraph on the slide that follows
using your sensory detail list. Be creative and use
your imagination to describe the scene in each
picture.
Warm-up 1
Sight:
Hearing:
Touch:
Taste:
Smell:
Warm-up 2
Sight:
Hearing:
Touch:
Taste:
Smell:
Warm-up 3
Sight:
Hearing:
Touch:
Taste:
Smell:
Warm-up 4
Sight:
Hearing:
Touch:
Taste:
Smell:
Warm-up 5
Sight:
Hearing:
Touch:
Taste:
Smell: