Hook Me In! (or: How to Be Specifically Indirect)
Purpose of the Exercise: Students learn about the benefits of drawing a verbal picture in the first paragraph of a composition. Especially useful for students who are unaccustomed to creative writing. They tend to write intro paragraphs more suited to an academic essay, with general, vague language and a thesis-type statement.
Description: This exercise is designed for the personal essay/memoir, but could be applied to other genres. I am borrowing from a basic convention of journalism - to entice the reader to continue reading. Students practice using descriptive language that is concise, specific, and sensory, but that is implicit in its purpose / moral / message.
Suggested Time: 75 minutes, or, about one and a half 50-min classes Procedure: - Students get into groups of four or five. - Provide each group with one cliché saying or piece of wisdom. Examples of sayings I used: “Don’t put all your eggs in one basket.” “You can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make it drink.” “Use it or lose it.” - Tell the groups to keep their saying a secret because the rest of the class has to guess what the old saying is.
PART 1 (15-20min): Each group has to, first, come up with a scenario that illustrates this wisdom. They can use an event in one of their personal lives, or they can make one up. They need to briefly conjure up a protagonist and maybe another character, pick a setting (with a local and global-ish aspect), and create an event that they experienced and learned from.
PART 2 (25-30min): Then, they must collaborate to create a paragraph that would introduce their essay. This paragraph must include one descriptive sensory picture of one moment from their scenario. The picture could be figurative or can describe a resonant moment in their scenario. Also, it has to suggest the old saying. The groups must try to avoid being too obvious or too obscure.
PART 3 (5-10min, or the beginning of next class time): The groups share their intro paragraphs. The class tries to infer what each group’s old saying is. The class votes on the group whose language did the best hooking. That group gets bragging rights for the rest of the semester.
You might lead a discussion asking students how it felt to write using a theme/saying as an organizing principle. How was this different than writing they had done in the past? It might also be helpful to list and share introductory strategies the group came up with.