Chapter 9: Writing to Describe
VIDEO TRANSCRIPT
for Teaching
Jeffrey Tayler,
“The Sacred Grove of Oshogbo”
Hi, I’m Sid Dobrin. In this video, I’m going to talk about teaching Jeffrey Tayler’s essay “The Sacred
Grove of Oshogbo.” I’ll be talking about teaching his essay in the context of first year writing and
writing to describe. I’ll be addressing the essay specifically from a rhetorical situational approach.
One of the things I try to make clear to students when I teach writing to describe is that descriptive writing most often serves other rhetorical purposes; that is, in most situations, writers use
descriptions to support other rhetorical objectives. Tayler’s essay is a great example of this, as it is
clearly a descriptive essay, but the essay is primarily a narrative and is also informative. Tayler’s
descriptions serve his informative and narrative purposes.
Once I talk with students about this facet of Tayler’s essay, I turn my attention specifically to Tayler’s descriptive writing in the essay and how the descriptive qualities of the essay contribute to
the situation in which he participates.
The essay, of course, can easily be read as being attentive to issues of location. From the first sentence of the essay, Tayler describes places—the corrugated red mud road outside of the Nigerian
town of Oshogbo, but in doing so he is also alert to the fact that he is writing for an audience who
will, for the most part, never see the place he describes. Likewise, his writing takes into account
that his audience will probably be reading his writing in a place very different from the place he
describes.
I also ask students to look closely at how Tayler’s use of dialogue contributes to the overall descriptive effect of the essay. I talk with students about how the dialogue contributes to how we
hear Tayler’s description and use this as an opportunity to ask students to consider what senses
Tayler’s descriptions appeal to.
Part of the success of Tayler’s description, too, is his use of naming. In giving names to things he
describes, he helps his audience relate the descriptions to named things and people.
With these descriptive strategies in mind, I also ask students to think about the method Tayler
uses and how the tone of the essay contributes to the overall sense of the place he describes. That
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Chapter 9
Video Transcript: Tayler, "The Sacred Grove of Oshogbo"
is, I want students to see that the descriptive words Tayler uses are only part of the overall rhetorical approach to describing. The tone, the dialogue, and the overall sense of the essay also help
readers read the experience of the description.
So, those are some of the main approaches I take when teaching “The Sacred Grove of Oshogbo.”
Depending upon your reading of the essay, your particular areas of expertise and interests, you
probably have other approaches you find useful, too, that you might want to share as well. So,
how do you teach this essay? Post a response to this video—either in the comment section or as
a video response—and share your thoughts on teaching this essay as well. Thanks for watching!
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