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Composition/Rhetoric Section of Notebook, Page 1

Writing Introductions for Narrative Essays

Introductions are the beginning part of an essay. In fact, they are the first paragraph or series ofparagraphs, as in the case of longer essays. The introductory paragraph(s) often consists/consist ofa hook (a device for getting the attention of the reader); necessary information forestablishing the context of the situation, problem, or argument to be discussed (background); andthe thesis statement (main point). Narrative essays often omit the thesis at the end of theintroduction.

The hook, often the first sentence but sometimes the first paragraphor paragraphs, is an attention-getting device used by the writer to"hook" the reader and draw him or her into the essay.

In narrative essays, the thesis statement sometimes does not appear until the conclusion,and sometimes the thesis is implicit (that means it is never directly stated but must be inferred orfigured out by the reader).

In-the-Middle/ Summary Hook:

I remember Chris and I were on a trip to Canada a few years ago, got about 130 miles andwere caught in a warm front of which we had plenty of warning but which we didn't understand. Thewhole experience was kind of dumb and sad.

-- from Robert Pirsigs Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance

In-the-middle/Action hook:

We were working at the laundry when a delivery boy came from the Rexall drugstore aroundthe corner. He had a pale blue box of pills, but nobody was sick. Reading the label, we saw that itbelonged to another Chinese family, Crazy Mary's family. "Not ours," said my father. He pointed thename to the Delivery Ghost [In this narrative, the Chinese refer to all white people as ghosts], whotook the pills back.

My mother muttered for an hour, and then her anger boiled over. "That ghost! That deadghost! How dare he come to the wrong house?" She could not concentrate on her marking andpressing. "A mistake! Huh!"

-- from Maxine Hong Kingstons The Woman Warrior: Memoirs of a Girlhood Among Ghosts

Dialogue hook:

Have you dived in the pass yet? the proprietor of the hotel asked the first evening, when wetold him that we liked the diving.

No, we said, not yet.Ah, he said, You must dive the pass. It is the most exciting dive on Rangiroa,Why is that?The swiftness of the current, and also there are many fish.Sharks? someone asked.Yes, he said, smiling, usually some sharks.I was in Tahiti for Christmas with my familymy brother and sister, and assorted husbands,

wives, girlfriends, friends. We were visiting several island, and we had begun with the most remote.

-- opening of Michael Crichtons essay Sharks in Travels.

Startling/Disturbing/Surprising Fact or Statement Hook:

It is not easy to cut through a human head with a hacksaw.The blade kept snagging the skin, and slipping off the smooth base of the forehead. If I made

a mistake, I slid to one side or the other, and I would not saw precisely down the center of the nose,the mouth, the chin, the throat. It required tremendous concentration. I had to pay close attention,and at the same time I could not really acknowledge what I was doing, because it was so horrible.

-- opening of Michael Crichtons essay Cadaver in Travels

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I never learned hate at home, or shame. I had to go to school for that. I was about seven

years old when I got my first big lesson. I was in love with a little girl named Helene Tucker, a light-complexioned little girl with pigtails and nice manners. She was always clean and she was smart inschool. I think I went to school then mostly to look at her. I brushed my hair and even got me a littleold handkerchief. It was a lady's handkerchief, but I didn't want Helene to see me wipe my nose onmy hand. The pipes were frozen again, there was no water in the house, but I washed my socks andshirt every night. I'd get a pot, and go over to Mister Ben's grocery store, and stick my pot down intohis soda machine. Scoop out some chopped ice. By evening the ice melted to water for washing. I gotsick a lot that winter because the fire would go out at night before the clothes were dry. In themorning I'd put them on, wet or dry, because they were the only clothes I had.

-- opening of Dick Gregorys essay Shame

Character Description Hook:

Father was a stern straight man. Straight legs and shoulders; straight side-trim to his beard,the ends of which were straight-cut across his chest. From under heavy eyebrows his look was direct,though once in a rare while a little twinkle forced its way through. Then something was likely tohappen.

Our family had to whiz around Father like a top round its peg.

-- opening of Emily Carrs essay Time in The Growing Pains: The Autobiography of Emily Carr

Setting (Description) Hook:

It is Sunday afternoon, and sun is pouring through the kitchen window by the sink. I willnever see that light again, a rainbow filtered through a suspended crystal, striking the floor, lying inwait for the kitten who has now become a cat. The dust is still falling, particles floating before myeyes, whole little worlds, so much like that speck Horton, the ethical elephant, guarded even at theperil of his life. My hand reaches out through the swirling mass, through the light, and I pluck back aworld I thought gone, a portal to a moment, an access to a parallel universe.

In this world, it is snowing and my son, five or six, sits between my legs on a red saucer sled.The flakes have been falling for a long time, and the ground is covered enough for us to begin thisjourney. He smiles at me, saying, "Too bad Jacob and mom are asleep, huh?"

Rhetorical Question Hook:

What did I see that night I peered through the slits in the Venetian blinds covering the glasson my grandmothers door? Was it the eyes of some poor dog or cat stranded in the suddendownpour of the thunderstorm, or was it my doppelganger, my own psychic twin come to visit meand frighten me into being a more obedient child?

To this day, I do not know. My brother was in the hospital, and I had been left . . .

Humor Hook:

Knock, Knock.Whos there?Orange.Orange Who?Orange you glad to see me?

It was the summer of knock, knock jokes and bad puns that wouldnt stop. It was the summerthat I met Francis.

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Composition/Rhetoric Section of Notebook, Page 3

Apt Quotation Hook:

When I remember what Oscar Wilde wrote in The Critic as an Artist, that there is no sinexcept stupidity, I have to admit that my brother is the most sinful person in the world.

From our earliest days, he was the dupe of the most amazing schemes, but perhaps the mostserious and therefore most sinful of all was that incident where he . . .

End-of-the-Story Hook:

In the time of the April lilacs in the year 1865, a man in the city of Washington, D.C., trusted aguard to watch at a door, and the guard was careless, left the door, and the man was shot, lingered anight, passed away, was laid in a box, and carried north and west a thousand miles, bells sobbed;cities wore crepe; people stood with their hats off as the railroad burial car came past at midnight,dawn, or noon.

-- opening of Abraham Lincoln: The Prairie Years, the beginning of Carl Sandburgs biography of Lincoln