HOOKS
OR
HOW TO GET A READER’S
ATTENTION
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?
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
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
Examples from books:
“Ba-room, ba-room, baripity,
baripity, baripity – Good. His
dad had the pickup going.”
Bridge to Terabthia by Katherine Paterson
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
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.
POSSIBLE HOOKS:
Definition
The Black Death was an unstoppable disease
caused by the fleas carried by the rats that cohabitated 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.
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.
ASSIGNMENT
• Using your selected memory, create a Flow Map or
Plot Diagram depicting your plot
• Create a bubble map for your setting that includes
sensory details (see, hear, taste, etc.)
• Create bubble maps for your characters that
include physical and personality traits
• Using your “hooks” begin your exposition
• This is due at the start of class on Tuesday, 9-1712.
Prompt
In chapter 11 from the Giver, Jonas receives his first
memory. Each memory Jonas receives, he acquires the
wisdom needed to make decisions for his community.
Think of a time in your life when you learned a valuable
lesson that lead you to make better decisions.
Hooks, or How to Get a
Reader’s 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.