LongMiddleClose


 * Pick a scene you consider typical of you own childhood. Describe it in the pattern long shot, middle shot, close-up. Include showing through description, imagery, and figures of speech in your essay. Make sure that you begin with a wide sweep and end with a tight focus. Make your piece between 400-500 words in length. Read the following example before you begin your writing.**
 * Put the proper page headings on the top of your paper before you submit your essay. Entitle your piece: Long-middle-close.**

Outside the shroud of deep night hangs heavy in the December night. A full moon stands guard high in the sky, its brilliant luminescence dancing across the neighborhood yards, causing the hard, crusted snow to magically shimmer like a diamond studded carpet. Countless stars shiver against the black, velvet backdrop. I scratch a patch of ice from the corner of my bedroom window with the edge of my thumbnail, sighing to myself that three o’clock in the morning is certainly too early to awaken Mother. I make my way back to the double bed I share with my four-year-old sister, tiptoeing on the balls of my feet least the cold linoleum and floorboards creak and give me away. Mother will certainly scold if I get out of bed too early on Christmas morning, admonishing me with something like, “Get back to bed, Trudy! Santa probably hasn’t even come yet!” Excitement quivers inside of me like finely tuned piano strings, the music of which has stirred me from a restless slumber. The journey back to my warm haven seems extremely long. It is as if time has been stretched out into slow motion and still shots. I squint my eyes, trying to make out the edge of the bed in the half twilight that fills the room from the glow of the nightlight. Inch by inch, I creep like a crippled snail. Finally, I dare to extend my arm to feel the security of the bed blanket. My little sister has migrated to my side of the bed. I gently nudge her, and she lets out a small whimper and rolls back to her own side. I crawl into the bed, turn on to my side, and pull the thick layers of covers up to my chin. As I snuggle deep into my feather pillow, I glance at the clock on the bureau, which now reads 3:05. “Impossible!” I mumble to myself. “At least thirty minutes had to pass.” (Christmas Eve is always the longest night of the year.) Behind me I feel my sister’s warmth. Once again she has begun her usual nocturnal migration. I listen carefully, trying to will my mother’s rising, but all I hear is Annie’s rhythmic breathing. Suddenly, I get a knee in the back. I stare at the clock. I am convinced the hands are now frozen and that I have just entered the Twilight Zone. I awaken to blinding sunlight pouring through the frosted bedroom windows. I have trouble opening my eyes, which are pasted shut with what Mother calls “sleepy dust”. My eyes now halfway open, I focus on my mother’s smiling face hovering above me. My two-year-old brother is straddled across her left hip, and she is softly calling to Annie and me, “Wake up. Wake up, sleepyheads. It’s Christmas morning. Come on. Let’s see if Santa has brought you anything.”

479 Words