How to Write An Essay: What Is a Descriptive Essay? - FLASH-PC

An interactive descriptive-essay software lesson pairs a reading passage on objective versus subjective description with graphic organizers and a 4-level writing rubric.

Grades: Grades 5–8, Middle School, Elementary
File type: Software (PC)

Updated Sep 11, 2021

Subject: Writing, ELA
Topic: Software (PC)
Resource types: Lesson Plans, Teacher Tools

From the author

About this resource

An interactive lesson software package teaches descriptive-essay writing through a reading passage that distinguishes objective description (using a police accident report as its model) from subjective, sense-based description, then walks students through writing an introduction with a topic sentence and thesis sentence. Two printable graphic organizers, a Five Senses Graphic Organizer and a Spider Map, support prewriting, and a four-level rubric scores the final essay on ideas, organization, style, and conventions. Teacher-facing pages explain the lesson's Bloom's Taxonomy alignment, a critical-thinking-skills chart, and how the six-chapter digital lesson is organized into Teacher, Student, and Printable sections. The core interactive delivery is built as a Windows .exe application driving Adobe Flash (.swf) content, a format Adobe discontinued in December 2020. Once students can write a thesis-driven introduction, the same skill carries into a full 5-paragraph essay outline that structures three body paragraphs and a conclusion around it.

In the classroom

Teaching tips & learning objectives

Learning objectives

Students will distinguish between objective and subjective descriptive essays.
Students will plan a descriptive essay using the Five Senses Graphic Organizer or Spider Map before drafting.
Students will write an introductory paragraph containing a topic sentence and thesis sentence, following the modeled example.
Students will use vivid, sensory language and avoid storytelling or persuasive elements, per the 'Writing Watchdog' tips.

Teaching tips

Verify the interactive .exe/.swf lesson still runs before assigning it, since it is built on Adobe Flash, discontinued in December 2020.
Use the printable PDF versions of the reading passage and graphic organizers as a fallback if the Flash-based interactive lesson cannot be run.
Have students complete the Five Senses Graphic Organizer before drafting, since the reading passage explicitly recommends it as a prewriting step.
Use the included 4-level rubric (Ideas, Organization, Style, Conventions) to assess the final descriptive-essay draft.

Skills covered

Descriptive-essay planning — students use the Five Senses Graphic Organizer or Spider Map to gather sensory details before writing.
Objective vs. subjective description — students distinguish factual, sense-based description from writer-opinion description using the passage's police-report example.
Introduction and thesis-statement writing — students draft a topic sentence and thesis sentence following the modeled paragraph.
Sensory descriptive vocabulary — students are prompted, via a 'Writing Watchdog' character, to use vivid, sense-based language.

Good to know

Questions teachers ask about this resource

What is the difference between an objective and a subjective descriptive essay, according to the reading passage?

An objective essay describes what any observer would see (colour, shape, size) without the writer's feelings, using a police accident report as the example; a subjective essay relies on the writer's five senses and personal impressions.