1. HOW TO GET A READER’S ATTENTION
HOOKS OR
HOW TO GET A READER’S ATTENTION

2. Good writing starts with a good Hook
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 can’t prove to your reader that you can write an interesting hook, why would they want to read on?

3. WHAT PAPERS USE THEM?
EVERY GENRE OF PAPER NEEDS A HOOK OF SOME KIND. IT’S 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

4. White Fang by Jack London
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

5. Bridge to Terabthia by Katherine Paterson
Examples from books:
“Ba-room, ba-room, baripity, baripity, baripity – Good. His dad had the pickup going.”
Bridge to Terabthia by Katherine Paterson

6. Beware, Princess Elizabeth by Carolyn Meyer
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 king’s privy counselor and my brother’s uncle. In this way I learned of my father’s death.”
Beware, Princess Elizabeth by Carolyn Meyer

7. POSSIBLE HOOKS: Fact/Statistic Simile/Metaphor
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.

8. POSSIBLE HOOKS: Dialogue
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 there’s 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 victim’s body.

9. POSSIBLE HOOKS: Lyrics
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.

10. 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.

11. Hooks, or How to Get a Reader’s Attention
By Heather Wolpert-Gawron
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 Unported License.s 3.0.