HOOKS

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HOOKS OR HOW TO GET A READERS ATTENTION
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• Good writing starts with a good Hook. Whether
  it is a Narrative, a Response to Literature, or a
  Research Paper, there is no excuse to bore your
  reader! Besides, if you cant prove to your
  reader that you can write an interesting hook,
  why would they want to read on?

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WHAT PAPERS USE THEM?

• EVERY GENRE OF PAPER NEEDS A HOOK OF SOME KIND.
  ITS JUST UP TO YOU TO CHOOSE THE ONE THAT IS
  MOST APPROPRIATE. THIS IS BASED ON THE INTENT OF
  THE ESSAY AND THE AUDIENCE. YOU NEED A HOOK FOR
• NARRATIVES
• PERSUASIVE ESSAYS
• LITERARY RESPONSE

EXECUTIVE SUMMARIES
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Examples from books

• The eyes of the starving wolf pack gleamed like
  hot coals in the blackness of the frozen Arctic
  forest. They stared hungrily at the two
  man-animals and their dog-sled team huddled
  around the campfire. These man-animals had fish
  and they had meat. To a starving wolf-pack, who
  had had little to eat in months, the dogs and the
  man-animals were meat, too.
• White Fang by Jack London

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Examples from books

• Ba-room, ba-room, baripity, baripity, baripity
  Good. His dad had the pickup going.
• Bridge to Terabthia by Katherine Paterson

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Examples from books

• The king is dead.
• Those four words, cold as marble and sharp as
  flint, were uttered by the thin, cruel lips of
  Edward Seymour, the kings privy counselor and
  my brothers uncle. In this way I learned of my
  fathers death.
• Beware, Princess Elizabeth by Carolyn Meyer

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POSSIBLE HOOKS

• Fact/Statistic
• Nearly 1/3 of the population of Europe
  was killed by the plague.
• Tone/Mood
• The bodies piled up in the streets of London,
  untouched, uncared for, mourned by the frightened
  masses that were left behind wondering when it
  was going to be their turn to die.
• Simile/Metaphor
• The Black Death swept across the land like
  a broom brushing away people as it would dirt.
• In the Middle of the Action
• The trebuchet cranked back slowly, then
  released suddenly, launching the stone up and
  over the walls of the city.

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POSSIBLE HOOKS

• Definition
• The Black Death was an unstoppable disease
  caused by the fleas carried by the rats that
  co-habitated with the people of Medieval Europe.
• Dialogue
• I see theres been no improvement, the
  apothecary sadly admitted, looking at the small
  girl trembling and sweating with fever before
  him.
• Onomatopoeia
• Sssssss. Sizzle. The fever burned through
  the victims body.

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POSSIBLE HOOKS

• Staccato three word lead
• Rats. Sewers. Filth. London was not a city
  of great cleanliness.
• Lyrics
• Ring around the rosie. Pockets full of
  posies. Ashes, ashes, we all fall down!
• Theme
• Some people believed that the Plague was sent
  to punish the evil on Earth, but they would soon
  learn that the disease knew no such ethics. It
  did not distinguish its victims.

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ASSIGNMENT

• Take out your Rough Draft.
• Look at your list of possible hooks. Mimic 5
  different styles to start your essay in a
  powerful way.
• Pass your paper to the left and have the next
  person add 1 more possible revision to your list
  of new hooks.
• Then pass your paper to the left again and have
  that peer circle the three hooks on the list that
  they find the most effective.
• It is your paper, so from that list of 3, pick
  the best hook and use it in your final draft.

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Hooks, or How to Get a Readers Attention

• By Heather Wolpert-Gawron
• www.tweenteacher.com

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons
Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0
Unported License.s 3.0.