Students are broken into pairs.
Each student is given two pieces of paper.
On the first piece of paper each student draws a monster (without their partner seeing).
Once both monsters have been drawn they continue to hide their monster from their partner - however one person in the pair now becomes the describer and the other becomes the drawer.
Person A will describe their monster to person B (without showing person B the monster). Person B must listen and draw what they hear - but they do not show person A what they are drawing.
Once person A has finished describing their monster in as much detail as possible then person B has a turn to describe their monster. Person A draws (without showing person B) exactly what person B is describing.
When both people have finished describing and drawing their respective monsters then the original monsters get compared to the ones drawn from the descriptions.
Students, with the teacher, discuss why/why not the monsters look like the original. Students pin point ways they could have better described how their monster looked. They compliment each other on parts that were described/drawn similar and say how they would describe their monster differently next time.
I find this activity is useful as it helps the students focus on the importance of accurately describing something in detail - and it allows students to understand that when something isn't described in detail that the person listening to the description might paint a different picture in their mind to the actual thing.
This is especially important when writing a character description.
Often students picture the character in their mind - and in great detail - but when they come to writing about the character they fail to mention important things about the character. I hope this activity makes students realise that the more detail that is given to the listener/reader, that the more the listener/reader's image of the character will be like their own.