Because they help make you the person you are today and the person you will become, places are important in your life. Your school, for example, may affect the way you feel about education for the rest of your life. Even places you have visited only once, such as the hospital room where you stayed to have your tonsils removed, may be important if they had an effect on you.
By describing places of importance to you, you help readers share your experiences.
One way to share the experiences of a place is to use specific, vivid details. Think what sights, sounds, smells, textures, and tastes you remember about the place. When you remember a hospital room, for example, you may think how bare the room looked without rugs on the floor or posters on the wall, and you may recall the squeaking of the nurses' shoes on the tile floor and the faint smell of disinfectant. Record these details in your place descriptions.
Recall the people who were part of the place.
People are important in your memories of places. When you think back to your first-grade classroom, you may remember such things as the colorful alphabet posters that lined the walls and the fat pencils you used, but your memories would not be complete without recalling the people also. You may remember the teacher who smiled when you were frightened or the bully who pushed you into a mud puddle on the first day and ruined your new clothes. Describing people like these helps readers share your experiences.
Tell your thoughts and feelings about the place and the people there.
How did you feel alone in a room full of strangers? When you lost the new notebook you had taken care of since August? When you saw a classmate drop crayons into the goldfish tank?
