Lesson

PEARSON ADULT LEARNING CENTRE
Advanced Composition
Remembering Smells: Using Your Nose in Writing
 

November 6 and 7, 2002
 

"Nothing is more memorable than smell." —Diane Ackerman in her book, The Natural History of the Senses

The scents we remember may represent only a brief moment in our life; for example, the time we smelled yellow roses while walking with a new love. When we smell the flowers again, we will remember the smell of the night air, the rose's scent, the salty breeze. In this lesson, we will remember and describe an event in our lives through the smells of one place and time.
 

A Smelly Vocabulary

Nouns: scent, odour, perfume, whiff, aroma, fragrance, stench, reek

Verbs: smell, scent, inhale, waft, perfume, get a whiff of, reek

Adjectives: smelly, inhaled, scented, perfumed, stinking, reeking, foul, fragrant

 Writing Assignment:

Pick a favourite place and remember four details of the smells present there.

Remember food smells, household smells, cooking smells, if the place you remember is a home.

Outdoors smells in nature, while combined with a walk in a beautiful place, often produce strong memories as well.

List the four smells before you begin your paragraph.

Write the memory. Include at least one other person who was present at the place you remember. Mention three smells. Keep your paragraph short, so you can finish in 20 minutes or so.

Read two Teacher Writing samples for this assignment.

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