Dream Room Descriptive Essay

Students Design Fabulous Bedrooms and Describe Them in Writing

Jun 16, 2008

In this lesson, students shop online for favorite items. Most middle school students will be eager to write a descriptive essay with an introduction, body and conclusion.

The descriptive paper can be organized as a five paragraph essay or a shorter one. Desgining the dream room involves creativity and planning.

Preparation: Reserve the computer lab for about two-to-three days so that students can shop online for items to place in their rooms. Give a direction sheet with budget to students. A budget of $3,000-$5,000 for a bedroom will allow students to "buy" many great items.

To get students started, give them a basic bedroom with dimensions of 12x12. It also helps to give them a paper with a square that represents the room so that they can draw or place items on the paper as they shop.

Step 1: Tell students to start shopping online. This means that students will surf the net looking for items they want in their rooms. They never actually buy the items; however, they need to keep track of what they want to buy. Allow students to be creative.

Have students write down what they intend to “buy” with the price and the website address as they shop. If they keep a running tally of what they “spend,” they will not go over the budget.

Tip: Don’t allow the students to plan “construction projects” in their rooms because there are too many variables in price.

Step 2: Tell student to draw their rooms. There are two ways to do this. Students can print pictures of what they “bought” and glue them on paper or the students can draw the items.

Tip: It helps if all of the students have the room drawing facing the same way. It is best if the students do not use the “landscape” or horizontal position.

Step 3: Assign a rough draft of the descriptive dream room essay. It should have an introduction, body and conclusion. This essay should describe the room well enough so that another student could draw the room with only the essay.

Tip: If students have not written a descriptive essay that follows the writing process in the past, go over the basics before the lesson begins.

Step 4: Ask students to peer edit the rough draft of essay by having a classmate draw the room from the essay. The peer can critique the essay.

Step 6: Make copies of all of the room essays and use numbers instead of names for identification. Then, mix up the papers and tell students try to draw the rooms from the numbered essays.

Step 7: Allow students to compare their original drawing with the room drawing from a peer. They should write a reflection of what they did correctly and what needs work.

This essay can be assessed with a rubric. Or, the reflection can be the assessment. If students can understand what they need to change and write another draft, the grade can be improved.

Students generally love this lesson because they get to dream of a perfect room and design what they probably cannot afford. In addition, the essays show them their weaknesses and help them improve their descriptive writing.

The copyright of the article Dream Room Descriptive Essay in Middle School Lesson Plans is owned by Kellie Hayden. Permission to republish Dream Room Descriptive Essay in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.