HOOKS/Introductions
By Meg Griffitts
October 2015
Objective: Help students develop a repertoire of strategies for drafting introductions/hooks & understand that intros should engage readers and establish their purpose for writing (central idea).
9:30 – 9:40 a.m.: Ask students before we get started if they have any questions about the paper 3 prompt.
- Pop Quiz on reading (How Dungeons & Dragons Saved My Life p. 78; Geek Love p. 265)
9:40- 9:45 a.m.: Review strategies of Hooks include: (BH p. 41)
· Dialogue or a quotation (as we saw the effectiveness in paper 2’s)
· Provide historical background
· Define a term or concept (whenever you introduce a concept or the ‘terms/basis’ of your argument you should define it so the reader can meet you on the page—gives the writer authority and makes the argument more coherent—intro/hooks are a good way to hook & establish your argument)
· Something unexpected
· A contrast
· Offer a startling statistic or an unusual fact
· Description of setting
· A question or an exclamation
· Use a vivid example or image
· Develop an analogy (a comparison b/w two things for the basis of explanation or clarification; example: feel like a fish out of water; life is like a box of chocolates)
· Relate an anecdote (Matrix prompt—relate personal experiences)
9:45 – 9:55 a.m.: Ask students to look at readings for today p. 78 and discuss what strategies these authors employ. Dungeons & Dragons uses multiple strategies: something unexpected, description of a medieval setting/vivid image, and contrast b/w ‘mundane’ setting of HS and the excitement of being on a quest. Geek Love employs: an unusual fact along with the contrast of something unexpected (ask students: what is the ‘something unexpected?’), propose a contradiction.
Questions: What strategies have the writers used to hook their readers? Are these strategies effective? Why or Why Not?
9:55 – 10:10 a.m.: Show examples of great hooks from literature on projector and ask students to identify the hook strategy used)
Kristiana Colón: A Remix for Remembrance (each stanza acts as a new argument so we can analyze each section as a new ‘hook’)
If you really want to hear about it, the first thing you'll probably want to know is where I was born, and what my lousy childhood was like, and how my parents were occupied and all before they had me, and all that David Copperfield kind of crap, but I don't feel like going into it, if you want to know the truth. —J. D. Salinger,The Catcher in the Rye(1951)
“Once upon a time, in a far-off land, I was kidnapped by a gang of fearless yet terrified young men with so much impossible hope beating inside their bodies it burned their very skin and strengthened their will right through their bones.”
—An Untamed Stateby Roxane Gay
10:10 – 10:20 a.m.: Ask students to share the hooks they brought & we will discuss as a class why they’re effective.
10:20 – 10:30 a.m.: Pull up ads and ask students to analyze the techniques the advertisers are employing.
Mini Cooper “We Only Come At Night”; Duracel “Some Toys Never Die”; Grey New York “Holes” – what hook strategy do they use? (unexpected, contrast, analogy of mini coopers to bats at Halloween)
Then ask students to look more closely at ads based on other criteria to examine effects: key words, design, purpose, e/l/p
-why did the advertisers make these choices? What are the effects? What do you respond best to?
10:30 – 10:45 a.m.: Break students up into groups of four or five. Ask each group to employ 2 of the hook strategies we’ve discussed when looking at these ads to write two different hooks for the ad.
Ask students to write their hooks on the print out and turn into me at the end of class.