Weather and Our Daily Life
Senior 6 · English (Languages)
Weather and Our Daily Life
Lesson 3 of 4
30 min
Let's begin
A forecast tells you what the weather will do. A description makes you feel it. This lesson moves from the language of information to the language of experience: the sentence patterns that turn weather into something a reader can see, hear, smell and touch. Then you will use the same care for words in a very different text, a weather-safety poster, where every word must earn its place.
A descriptive passage written for this lesson.
By mid-afternoon the light had gone strange. The sky over the far hills turned the colour of a bruise, and the banana leaves hung completely still, as if they were listening. There was a smell of wet dust, though not a drop had fallen.
Then the wind arrived. We heard it before we felt it: a long hiss coming up the valley, the eucalyptus trees bending one after another like people bowing to a king. The air felt suddenly cool on our arms, and it tasted faintly of iron.
Down came the rain. It did not begin with a few polite drops; it fell all at once, drumming on the iron roof so loudly that we had to shout. Through the doorway we watched the yard dissolve, the red earth turning to a running sheet of water, the chickens scattering, a forgotten basket spinning slowly towards the gate.
The thunder sounded like furniture being dragged across a floor above us. Somebody counted aloud between the flash and the crash: four, five, six. Nobody went outside.
Twenty minutes later it was over. The storm gone, we stepped out into a washed, glittering world, our feet sinking into the mud, the gutters still chattering, the whole valley smelling of leaves.
Definition
Key terms
| Pattern | Example | Note |
|---|---|---|
| Sense verb + adjective | The air felt cool. | Linking verb: adjective, not adverb (cool, not coolly). |
| Sense verb + like + noun | The thunder sounded like furniture being dragged across a floor. | A simile built into the verb. |
| Sense verb or description + as if / as though + clause | The leaves hung still, as if they were listening. | Formal style may use were for all persons. |
| Perception verb + object + base verb | We watched the yard dissolve. | The whole, completed action. |
| Perception verb + object + -ing | We heard rain drumming on the roof. | An action in progress, seen in part. |
| There was a + sensation noun + of | There was a smell of wet dust. | Also: a sound of, a taste of, a feeling of. |
| Fronted adverbial + inversion | Down came the rain. | Full inversion, as in Unit 3, for drama. |
| Absolute phrase | The storm gone, we stepped out … | Compresses a whole clause ("When the storm had gone"). |
| Cumulative sentence | … a washed, glittering world, our feet sinking …, the gutters still chattering, the whole valley smelling of leaves. | Details pile up like the sensations themselves. |
Worked example
Building a sensory sentence step by step
Stop at the step that suits your purpose. Step 5 is powerful once in a paragraph; in every sentence it would exhaust the reader.
A poster has the opposite job to a description: it must be understood in three seconds by someone in a hurry, perhaps someone who reads little English. Plan it in five parts.
| Part | Advice |
|---|---|
| Headline | An imperative or a question-and-answer, in very large letters: "THUNDER? GET INDOORS." |
| Symbol | One clear picture that needs no words: a cloud and a lightning bolt. |
| Actions | Two or three short Do points, each starting with a verb. |
| Warnings | Two or three Don't points, concrete and visual. |
| Source | Where the advice comes from, so readers can trust it. |
The advice on this model follows the US National Weather Service: no place outside is safe in a thunderstorm; go into a solid building and wait 30 minutes after the last thunder before going out again.
Warning
Practice
Sources and credits
