Students often forget how important detail
and development are in helping the audience
understand their writing. The old "showing not
telling" addage really holds true in nonfiction
writing as well as fiction. In a Literacy Essay,
for example, it's one thing to say "I was in third
grade" and another to describe what that experience was
like so that the reader can visualize or "feel" it as they read details about the classroom itself, the teacher's appearance and demeanor, or what it felt like to sit in the classroom and watch the hands on the clock slowly lurch their way towards three o'clock. "I was in third grade" gives accurate information but no sense of what this experience means to the writer.
