Identify Sensory Details

Identify Sensory Details

This will be our lesson today about learning how to identify sensory details. Use this to study for your test.

Question:

Select the sentence with the sensory detail that describes a sight.

My sister Abigail decided to take a cruise to Alaska for her birthday last year. She invited the whole family to join her. Mom thought it would be expensive, but Dad thought it would be worth it. It turned out that Dad was right. We learned a lot about whaling, glaciers, and dogsledding during our trips to the shore. We also saw an enormous gray whale rise to the surface next to our boat. That was an experience I'll always remember.

Key Idea:

Writers use sensory details to make stories and scenes easier for the reader to imagine. A sensory detail makes the reader imagine a particular sight, sound, smell, taste, or touch.

Sight: John's face glowed from the light of the fire.

Sound: In the morning, Samantha awoke to the chirping of birds outside her window.

Smell: I caught a wiff of freshly baked bread as I passed by the bakery.

Taste: The sharply sour apple made Mary's mouth pucker.

Continued...

Touch: Ted was uncomfortable in his scratchy wool sweater.

Solution:

This sentence has a sensory detail that describes a sight:

We saw an enormous gray whale rose to the surface right next to our boat.

The detail enormous gray whale is something the reader can imagine seeing.