Question

Does the writer of the sample essay in this week's module use at least three of the five senses? Which ones does he use?

Sight? Sound? Smell? Taste? Touch?

What is your favorite description in this essay and why?

Does this assignment fulfill the requirements of a descriptive essay as noted in both the textbook and the module?

The Storm We Couldn’t Escape

Surviving the wrath of a tornado is a horrifying experience because we had no way of

knowing when and were it was going to strike.

It was in July and the year was 1981. My family had just moved to Oklahoma due to my

father’s job transfer. Our new home was a modest one, and not very protective to the elements

of a storm.

The day the tornado struck I was in my room watching television. A news report came

on saying that severe weather was approaching and that there would be a chance of tornadoes. It

was a little hard to believe because outside we were enjoying the most beautiful day since we

had moved there. The weather would turn out to be short lived. About two hours later the sun

that we had been enjoying seemed to have been swallowed up by the dark gray storm clouds.

The color of bright sunshine had been replaced with the eerie feeling of impending doom. The

darker it became outside the quieter it became. It was almost as if the animals outside knew

what was coming. It started to rain.

As the rain came down it sounded as if someone was beating on our house with a couple

of gigantic drumsticks. Every ten minutes we would get an update from the television.

According to the weatherman, the severe storm was headed our way. The rain grew more

intense. When the next update came on, the weatherman warned that a tornado had touched

down ten miles away from our home. It was then that the power went out.

Last name page

Covered in a complete blanket of darkness, my mother fumbled through the house

looking for candles. As she did, I could hear the pounding of rain turn into the hammering of

hail. Unfortunately, some items were still packed away and this included the candles. The only

light we had came from a lighter. Now that we had no electricity, we could not get the updates

from the television. We sat there to wait it out. About five minutes later the hail stopped and the

howl of the winds picked up. I could see by the change of expression on my parent’s face that

this was not a good thing. We needed to take shelter. The house did not have a basement in it so

our only option was to go outside and get into the cellar.

When we opened the front door to go outside the wind smacked us in the face. I heard

my mother scream, “Oh my God, look!” There it was in the middle of the field heading right

toward us. As the funnel cloud ripped through the field it tore up the ground like a giant weed

whacker. With the strike of lightning you could see that it was carrying debris of recent victims

along with it. We only had a couple of minutes until it would be upon us. The soft and muddied

ground gave way with each step as we ran toward the cellar. The cellar doors are bound with a

thick metal chain wrapped around the handles. Using the rusted shovel that was laying next to

the cellar, my father broke the doors away from their hinges.

Running down the warped stairs I had to catch myself on the railing due to the slippery

mold with which the stairs were covered. We huddled in the far corner waiting for the worst.

You could tell that the cellar doors had not been open in years because of the thick smell of

fungus. The only residents to it now were the spiders that you could feel scurrying across your

feet. My back was pressed against the hard concrete wall and I could feel the cold rain slide

down into the back of my shirt. The tornado then struck our home. Although I was sitting in

complete darkness, I shut my eyes as tight as I could.

The first thing I could hear were the windows shattering as if smashed with one of my

baseballs. I was then faced with a sound I could not quite make out. It sounds similar to

someone taking bites out of a huge piece of celery. The sound was the house being ripped of its

foundation. Then the noise stopped. We sat there for what felt like hours waiting for the tornado

to come back, but it never did. A bright beam of light came through the opening left by the

cellar doors. The sunshine was back. I now knew what it was like to stand on the threshold of

disaster.

The scene outside seemed like something out of a movie. The house was obliterated.

The only thing left to show a home even existed there was the torn and mangled water pipes.

Our landscaping now consisted of no more than the torn and splintered debris from the storm.

All of our accomplishments and dreams had disappeared with the funnel cloud. Even our car

was no where to be found. My parent’s assured me that they would buy me all new things, but

the only thing I wanted was the innocence lost with that storm.

Answer 1

Yes, the writer used four senses such as sight, sound, smell, and touch in this essay.

Sight: The writer says that he was watching television on the day the tornado struck his house. When the howl of winds picked up, the writer could see the expressions in his parent's face which was not a good thing. When the lightning struck, the writer and his parents could see the tornado was carrying the debris of the recent victims in it.

Sound : The writes compares the sound of the rain on his house to the sound like someone was beating with giant drumsticks on his house. The author heard his mother scream when she looked at the tornado approaching their house. When the tornado hit the writer's house, he could hear the sound of the window shattering as if he had hit it with his baseball. He also heard a sound that resembled like biting a huge celery which was actually the sound of the tornado ripping off his house.

Smell: When the writer and parents went to the cellar they could smell the thick fungus because the place was not opened for many years.

Touch: The writer says that, when the current went off, his mother was fumbling through the house to get a candle. When the writer and his parents opened the house door, the wing smacked their face. The writer mentions about the scurrying of spiders across his feet. He could also feel the cold rain on the back of his shirt as he was pressing himself against the wall.

My favorite description of this essay was how the writer described the tornado, all the aspects related to the tornado such as its intensity, how destructive it was, what damage it caused to the place and the writer's house and how it made the writer feel so scary and how it had taken away the innocence away from him went it went off.

Yes, this essay had fulfilled the requirements of a descriptive essay because the writer had described every aspect of the incidence that he had written. The writer mentioned very single detail regarding the scenario, which made me feel that I was also experiencing that situation along with the author and made me more connected. His use of the sensual experiences made it possible for me to related myself to that incidence which made it more realistic as I read through the essay.