Before starting on the descriptive essay, I listed things I might’ve wanted to focus on, I was in a dilemma between writing about my home and a family house. My choice was to write about my home because describing too much about family could make me end up describing two topics, and I do not want to make that mistake again. Instead, I described what I saw in the house, and my family was part of the picture, but I used that to get to the larger point of why the house is important to me. I used the advice professor Rodwell gave us in class, to describe from the outside to inside or vice versa. Making an outline helped me figure out what I should include in each section. For example, I started with the front yard and I included my senses, like what I see, smell, and feel in the most descriptive way possible. Then, I worked my way in from the entrance to the second floor. I listed things I saw under each category, like living room, kitchen, basement, bathroom, bedrooms, the second floor etc. I learned that describing a person, place, or thing in full depth has no meaning, it is the ultimate purpose that you must connect to.  

Through this descriptive essay, I want to be able to make the audience imagine and feel the warmness and peace I feel when I am at home. The target audience for my writing piece are teenagers because I want them to be grateful for having a roof over their head, a place they could call home even if it is shabby. The message I am trying to get through to the readers is that any house you live in should feel warm and a sense of comfortableness. I was describing the wonderful house I could call home after many struggles of living in poor conditions. The exigence is to convey the feeling of what a home feels like to me and how grateful I am to be finally be able to settle in one place with my mom. I provided the context by using senses, place, and what activities going on in the house to describe what I see and how they provide meaning for the bigger picture. 

There were examples of descriptive writings on blackboard which was helpful because it gave me an idea on what to include and how everything I write about needs to connect to the purpose of the essay. Some articles include, “Ours Was a Dad” by Judy Davis and “Girl” by Jamaica Kincaid. In this essay, I tried to be as descriptive as possible, but after reading the articles I realized that it is not about just writing down what you see, it is about using descriptive words to hint towards the main topic. I was also able to edit my writing through the help of my peers and professor who gave me feedback on grammar mistakes, telling me to elaborate, and fix the confusing parts. My essay was confusing because I conveyed the wrong idea, some thought it was about moving in to a new house because I wrote how it was a new and nicely constructed house. I wrote it on any given day after coming home from school. I added in that it was just a regular day after realizing how it confused my readers. There were also some sentences that confused the readers, and I was able to reread it and find out what I did wrong.

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