As you approach the front door, you travel along a winding walkway surrounded by purple morning glories and red-orange tiger lilies. The bright flowers are accompanied by towering oak trees. Amongst the leaves and high branches the chickadees chirp a tune. Just beyond and out of sight around the side of the house are lilac bushes; their presence is known through their scent being carried on the summer breeze. The uneven wooden step greets you with creaks as you take your steps up to the porch. Knock, knock, knock on the bright red door. A few moments pass and suddenly you are greeted by smiles and warm hugs; home is where the heart is.
Reading through travel narratives, especially Take in the State Fair, I feel that my ability to write with sensory detail has greatly improved. Sensory detail means my grandparents’ house is no longer just a small home with tons of flowers. It can now be described as what it really is – safe, secure, and loving. Surrounded by a beautiful garden in the summer, sensory detail can make it sound like the Garden of Eden. Sensory detail impacts the audience because it makes the reader feel like they are there experiencing it too. It is easy enough to say, “My grandparents’ house has many flowers by the entrance. It is pretty”. However, incorporating sight, smell, taste, touch, and sound make the reader much more interested and understanding of the place being described.
Meredith’s text was written with awesome sensory detail, she didn’t just describe the walkway, she drew a beautiful picture in my head of tall flowers and a cozy home. I believe that she chose to organize the piece this way so that her readers could experience the walk up to her grandparent’s house rather than just telling her readers what it looks like or smells like etc. Her piece opened up the way it did to grab the reader’s attention, which it did. She automatically put me in front of this cozy home with flowers on either side of her with a bright red door at the end of her path. I loved how she gave a metaphor at the end of her paragraph to sort of tie her entire piece together. “Home is where the heart is,” is such a strong meaning that everyone can relate to and shows the reader how she was feeling at the moment when she was walking up to the front door. I agree that Meredith has improved on her sensory detail and it is greatly shown in this paragraph.
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