Ice Cream, Plastic Spoons and Paper Cups

This exercise probably was inspired at least in part by Chip Scanlan's "my favorite dessert" exercise, though I use it differently and I don't recall making the connection when I decided to do this. I used this exercise first in June 2003 for a Mid-America Press Institute workshop on sports writing. Then I used it in July for a workshop for editors of small and mid-size papers on helping reporters improve stories. I used it for the editors as an example of an exercise they could use in training for their staffs.

I picked up a few small cartons of ice cream (not all Ben and Jerry's, but that size), some plastic spoons and small paper cups. For the first exercise, I just brought large spoons to scoop out the ice cream. The second time I picked up a couple cheap plastic scoops. I passed the ice cream around, telling everyone to take a scoop or two. Then I gave them three minutes to write about the sensory experience of eating the ice cream. Then I gave them a minute or two to pair up and read their ice cream story to a partner. I asked the group to volunteer their partners to read really good passages. So a few people read and we applauded their passages.

Then I acknowledged (in the sports workshop) that maybe you don't have much call to use your sense of taste in sports writing. But I said too many sports stories don't use their other senses either. I gave them another three minutes to write a sensory passage using any or all of their senses to describe the experience of being at the last sporting event they covered. Again, I had them pair up and read to a partner. I had partners identify some of the best passages. These were vivid passages that put us right in the stands if not on the field. And they were passages that we don't often read in stories about sporting events. (In the workshop for editors who would be working with all kinds of reporters, I asked them to write a sensory passage describing something they had experienced in the past 24 hours). Both times the exercise got strong participation and prompted some vivid writing. And even if it bombs entirely, who's going to complain when you're giving them ice cream?