Writing a Descriptive Essay
HOLT
,
RINEHART AND WINSTON
INTRODUCTION
Attention-getting opener
Action details
Controlling impression
Background information
Drums in Tiger Country
BOOM! tikki-tikki BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! tikki-tikki
BOOM! With the first sound of the thirty-five pound bass drum, the students sitting in the stands of the Tivoli High
School gym begin yelling. On the newly refurbished hardwood floor, the cheerleading squads from the different grade levels are doing stunts and routines to the sound of the drum section’s cadences. The sports team sits in rows of chairs lined up across one end of the gym, and positioned carefully on top of a huge tarpaulin. Some parents sit on the backless bleachers, clapping along with the drumbeats. Noise fills the gym, rocketing off the walls, and rising in intensity as the drum section, never missing a beat to the complicated cadences, enters by the student hall and takes its place in the bleachers. No place on campus is as exciting as the gym on a pep rally day. Without a doubt, the gym is the heart of our school spirit, and the Tivoli High
School drum line is its soul.
I am a percussionist. That means I spend my free time
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HOLT
,
RINEHART AND WINSTON
Writing a Descriptive Essay
Sensory details
Action details
Action details practicing rhythms with my fingers by beating on the center of my chest, tapping out beats at the supper table with my spoon, and drumming my pencil, fingers, or thumbs as I watch television or do my homework. During marching season, I carry the big thirty-five pound drum, which along with the four smaller bass drums, the five tenor drums, six snare drums, and the five cymbals make up the Tivoli Tiger Drum Line. On the field, drummers march backward, sideways, and sometimes, if we are lucky, forward.
During concert season, I play in the Honors band and with the orchestra. At one point or another, I have played the xylophone, the bells, the tympani, the triangle, the snare, the cymbals, the chimes, the gourd, the gong, the bass drum, the marimba, the glockenspiel, the toms, and the wooden clappers.
Out of all the places that I play, and out of all the things I play, my very favorite activity is when I put in my ear plugs, casually march into our high school gym, lay my bass drum sideways in the bleachers, and swing my mallet in my right hand in time to the school song, the spirit cadences, or the
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HOLT
,
RINEHART AND WINSTON
Writing a Descriptive Essay
Thoughts and feelings
BODY
Details about changes
Details about changes freewheeling sounds of high school students excited and charged up for an event. On those days, the Tivoli High School gym, an ordinary space like thousands of high school gyms across the country, becomes extraordinary—a rocking, enthusiastic, spontaneous, high school space.
The gym of Tivoli High School is twenty-five years old.
During the spring semester of my first year in high school, the voters in our school district passed a bond package that provided funds for refurbishing our gym. Over the summer, workers repainted the walls, replaced the well-worn basketball goals, installed a new hardwood floor for the gym, and upgraded the heating and cooling system. When we returned to school in the fall, our gym looked brand-new, but it had no character—yet.
The first thing the student council did was to present several designs for the huge empty spaces on the front and back walls of our gym. The students chose between the designs by popular vote, and within a month, the creamy white walls
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HOLT
,
RINEHART AND WINSTON
Writing a Descriptive Essay
Spatial order to describe gym
Sensory details
Spatial order
Sensory details
Thoughts and feelings sported new spirit designs. On the wall at one end, the words
“Tivoli High School” are spelled out in big, black, block letters. Underneath, as if bursting out from a jungle, is a huge, fierce-looking tiger. Its jaws are open and its teeth are sharp. Its right paw is extended, with scary-looking claws ready to grab whatever may be in its path. It has black and yellow stripes, yellow eyes and a red, snarling mouth. On the opposite end is painted another tiger. However, this one is shown in full side view, walking. Its head is turned toward the audience. Its stripes are yellow-orange and black. Underneath this tiger in script letters are the words “This is Tiger Country.”
On all four walls of the gym, up at the very top near the ceiling, hang banners that show the high school sports teams’ accomplishments over the last decades. There are banners for soccer, swimming, basketball, football, track, volleyball, and lacrosse. These banners, all done in our school’s colors, announce the years that the teams won the district, regional, or state playoffs. However, the banner I am most proud of is the one that says, “Tivoli High School Band. Winner of the State
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HOLT
,
RINEHART AND WINSTON
Writing a Descriptive Essay
Sensory details
Details about changes
Sensory details
Marching Contest.”
The decorations on the side walls behind the bleachers change weekly. Student organizations paint spirit signs in bold, primary colors on white paper, and put them up for each pep rally or special occasion held in our gym. The signs may say things such as, “Go, Tigers! Chew up the Bulldogs,” “The
Tigers are on the Prowl Tonight,” “Vote for Clarice for
President of the Tivoli Student Council,” “Tivoli High School
Salutes its Student Scholars, ” “Welcome, Freshmen,” or
“Thank You, Parent Volunteers.”
The floor of our gym is a source of pride for everyone.
After twenty-five years, we had a terrible gym floor—scuffed, scarred, dull, and dirty-looking. We could hardly see the paint lines marking the out-of-bounds. When we returned to school last fall, we were stunned at what we saw on the gym floor.
The hardwood was golden and shiny everywhere. We did not even know that floors could be that glossy. The paint marking the foul lines, the out-of-bounds, and the three-point zone was brilliant—black, green, and red. However, the most wonderful
5

HOLT
,
RINEHART AND WINSTON
Writing a Descriptive Essay
Action details thing about the new gym floor was set right in the center.
Inside the center court circle was painted the face of a tiger, our school mascot and exactly the face that appears on the bass drum that I carry. It was turned toward the student section.
Around the outside of the circle were the letters of our school motto: “Excellence in Everything.” Needless to say, we have taken extra efforts to protect that new floor.
Because the gym has been a part of this community for so many years, it is hardly ever empty. During the school day, the physical education classes meet in the gym before scattering to the various activities, either staying in the gym or playing outside. After school, the school’s basketball and volleyball teams practice. Later in the afternoon and early evening, groups of elementary and middle school students use the gym for their community school classes in gymnastics and basketball. Periodically throughout the school year, especially during the holiday season, the band and the choir present concerts in the gym that are open to the public. The gym is also the site for the yearly Escapades, put on by our school’s dance
6

HOLT
,
RINEHART AND WINSTON
Writing a Descriptive Essay
Action details groups. On weekends in the summer, the gym is open for pickup basketball games and for aerobics classes. And every year for Homecoming and Graduation, the gym becomes the setting for school dances and high school romances. On several occasions, the gym is used all night long, as school groups stage lock-ins for their fundraisers.
The gym is also the site of our once-a-year Percussion
Extravaganza. We invite all the middle school students who are in the percussion sections of their bands to come over for a special performance. Each middle school presents a short program of about two or three performance pieces that spotlights just the percussion instruments. Then the Tivoli High
School Drum Line marches in, playing our cadences—Spider,
Tiger 3, TripleTime, Jungle Club, Tiger Jam, and Tiger
Takedown. It never fails: The middle school students’ eyes pop out when they see and hear the sounds of those drums reverberating off the walls of the gym. They can hardly wait to get to high school.
7

HOLT
,
RINEHART AND WINSTON
Writing a Descriptive Essay
Most important detail
Sensory details
Action details
The most exciting day I ever spent in the gym, however, occurred a few months ago. We were playing for the district basketball championship against our arch rivals. By the luck of the draw, the contest was scheduled for our gym. It was packed the night of the game. Everyone was happy that the district had upgraded the heating and cooling system to keep the gym’s temperature just right for the heat of the crowd and the heat of the contest. We all could remember sweltering in an overheated gym and freezing when it was too cold.
Our team and coaches were ready; the cheerleaders were ready; the band, especially the drum section, was ready. The game began to build up in intensity. The teams were well matched and seemed to score with each possession. The new basketball goals were certainly getting a workout.
During the first half, our drum section played our cadences, usually during the timeouts. However, in the second half, our coach devised a full-court press defense and a fastbreak offense to try and break the game open. Our drum
8

HOLT
,
RINEHART AND WINSTON
Writing a Descriptive Essay
Sensory details
Thoughts and feelings
CONCLUSION
Restatement of controlling impression
Final statement section began picking up the pace of our cadences, playing non-stop. The sound in the gym increased, the pace of the players seemed even quicker, as if they were running up and down the court to catch up with our sounds. The noise of the drums and the audience rose so high that our gym walls seemed to vibrate, and the spirit signs and banners seemed to be dancing to our rhythms and sounds in the closely matched contest. It actually felt as if everyone’s heart was beating in time to our drum line. The Tigers were roaring!
I will never forget the excitement of that game.
Whenever I remember my years in high school, I will think about our gym: that place of spirit and sound. I will be glad that we had a place to gather at the heart of the school to cheer each other on, to perform, and to share with our community—the
Tivoli High School Tiger Gym.
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