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ELA 5: Showing vs. Telling 258 Views
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Description:
Show and tell isn’t just the day we could bring in our pet tarantula and terrify our teacher...It’s also two different options that writers have. Words can show, or they can tell. We feel like there's a third thing they can do, but...we can't think of the word for it right now.
Transcript
- 00:03
[Dino and Coop singing]
- 00:12
Show and tell isn’t just the day we can bring in our pet tarantula and terrify our [Spider walking across the teachers desk]
- 00:17
teacher…
- 00:18
It’s also two different options that writers have. [The teacher falls over in fright]
- 00:21
Words can show, or they can tell.
Full Transcript
- 00:22
And we know you're probably making the classic “I’m not buying it face.” [Students look unimpressed]
- 00:26
We get it.
- 00:27
After all, when we read a book, it seems like they're telling, all the time.
- 00:31
Seriously, each and every sentence tells us something new. [Flicking through pages of a book]
- 00:34
And unless it's a picture book, it's not exactly "showing" us stuff, am I right?
- 00:38
So what are we talking about?
- 00:40
Well, put down Mr. Fuzzywuzzy and hear us out. [Spider crawling on a students head]
- 00:44
Telling is pretty much what it sounds like: giving the reader information in a blunt, [Coop pointing at a blackboard]
- 00:48
straightforward way.
- 00:49
So in a story about a super sad man, telling would sound like this:
- 00:53
“The man is super sad.”
- 00:55
See?
- 00:56
Telling. [The sentence is stamped with 'telling']
- 00:57
…What?
- 00:58
We never said it was exciting.
- 00:59
On the other hand, showing is using descriptive details and dialogue to give the reader a [Dino pointing at a blackboard]
- 01:02
play-by-play of what's happening in a moment.
- 01:05
That sounds more like this:
- 01:06
“The man frowns.
- 01:07
His eyes well up with tears, and his chest sags because of his heavy, heavy heart. [Man crying]
- 01:12
Maybe it goes a step further and adds, “he’s wearing all black, weeping into [Man crying and watching the TV]
- 01:16
a pint of ice cream, and watching Titanic.”
- 01:19
Get it?
- 01:20
We know he’s sad, but the words never actually tell us so.
- 01:23
They describe what he's doing or what he's thinking to get across the idea without ever
- 01:27
coming out and saying it. [Guy falls onto the couch]
- 01:29
Showing not only allows writers to be subtle; it also lets them fill in details about their [Man walking through a parking lot]
- 01:33
fictional world and their character's lives.
- 01:35
Consider the following paragraph:
- 01:37
"Cars were jammed in the parking lot.
- 01:40
There were no carts left in front of the store and we had to wait until one freed up [The paragraph being written out]
- 01:44
from someone coming out.
- 01:45
The lines to check out went all the way down the aisles to the back of the store.
- 01:49
Heading out the night before Thanksgiving to buy a turkey was a bad idea."
- 01:53
This paragraph shows the scene, and gives us all sorts of visual details about what's [A very long queue in the store]
- 01:58
happening, namely, that the grocery store is busy.
- 02:01
But we wouldn’t have received any of those exciting images if the writer had stuck to
- 02:05
telling and just said:
- 02:06
"The grocery store was busy."
- 02:08
Good writing tries to balance showing and telling, but never leans too hard on telling. [A turkey jumps out the man's arms]
- 02:13
That's why The Sad Man Who Was Very Sad and Also He Was Sad, Did We Mention He's Sad?"
- 02:17
has never been a bestseller. [Book with the long sad title]
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