1.6 Texts that describe or explain
Descriptive texts tell you about what has happened or about people and situations. This means that they don’t try to tell you what you should do or think; they leave you to make up your own mind.
These texts tend to be longer because they are not just giving information but explaining or describing something in more detail. Newspaper, magazine and internet articles are good examples of this.
Descriptive texts often contain describing words to help build up an image in the reader’s mind. They may draw upon your five senses (seeing, hearing, feeling, smelling and tasting) to help you to imagine what something is like. For example:
- The white sandy beach stretched around the gently curving cove.
- The familiar smell of bonfire smoke hung in the cold air.
Activity _unit3.1.5 Activity 6 Descriptive texts
a.
Text A
b.
Text B
c.
Text C
The correct answer is a.
Discussion
Text A is descriptive as it describes the cottage and its surroundings. It uses describing words like thatched, black, small, old and narrow.
Text B sounds like a text that persuades, as it tries to persuade you that life in the country is great!
Text C sounds like a text that instructs, as it tells you how to replace a thatched roof.