https://www.nytimes.com/2019/11/06/learning/using-sensory-images-restaurant-reviews.html

Using Sensory Images: Restaurant Reviews

Author: Katherine Schulten and Jeremy Engle and was written in 2019

• Katherine Schulten: was an English teacher and now writes for the New York times

• Jeremy Engle: was a teacher and is now a journalist as well as an editor for the New York times

I chose this text because both because I thought that using sensory images is a good tactic in writing and because this mentor text seemed like it would be easy to present on

The composition techniques/strategies that can be taken away from this mentor text are exactly what you would think from the title. Which is applying sensory images to your writing as well as using mentor sentences (which I define/describe later on)

Quick Summary:

• The goal of this text is to be used as a text that students can learn from and copy/ take strategies away from

• The jist of the text is that the authors use restaurant reviews to show the use of sensory images in writing

• They compare and contrast the reviews with and without the sensory images, to show the improvements they make on the review

An example with sensory images is:

"The Sichuan fish is electric. Filleted tilapia simmers under a blistery rain of peppers. Its spice-bombed fragrance, lightened by bean sprouts, infuses the room; our neighbors turn to ask us what we ordered."

An example without the images is:

The Sichuan fish is excellent. The tilapia is covered in peppers. Its heavy fragrance makes the whole room smell.

Strategies to practice using sensory images:

• In order to apply the techniques they tell the reader to "take five minutes to describe the dish in writing in as much detail as you can,.. without naming the dish. Then have a partner will guess what you’re describing."

• According to the authors as you write you should be very specific, fresh, and without cliches

• The job of the partner is to guess the food, find sensory images used and count the number of aspects mentioned when describing the meal

After this the authors go on to provide examples of using sensory

Another composition style that’s similar to sensory images is using "mentor sentences"

• An example of this is taking an sentence like “The tacos look tasty,”

• And adding details like [name of restaurant], saying the [dish] looks like [comparison],” then describe how it looks like that in as much detail as possible. Another good addition to writing mentor sentences is describing a person at the place you are writing about

• An example of what it should look like after is "At El Molcajete, the tacos look like bouquets, brimming with cilantro, loosely bundled in paper sleeves twisted tight at one end and gaping at the mouth."

Sensory images can be used in more ways than describing places, they can describe actions, art, and all types of products

A place underground a bustling area of campus. Dust coats the walls, and it's so quite you could hear a pin drop. There are very few people around but noises from crowds can be heard from above. The long hallways and uniform book cases make it easy for someone to get lost in there, and plenty of people do. This place is only crowed twice a year, at midterms and finals.