Show me your introductions!

How a writer grabs a reader's attention can be the most important part of a piece of writing. After all, if the reader is bored after the first few sentences, what good is any of the rest of the essay? To catch a reader's attention, your introduction needs a compelling hook, as outlined in this excellent resource site from John Jay College.

How do you plan to start your essay? What will you do to grab the reader's attention? Select one of the styles of hooks from the John Jay writing tutorial site and write a rough draft of your introduction. Before you write, you should review these excellent exercises from John Jay to help you. Once you have it written, test drive your introduction on the blog.

Here's how I'd like you to do it.

First, review the site on introductions and write your introduction on your blog.

Next, underneath your introduction, write a few sentences that briefly explain why you chose to start your essay the way you did.

Finally, ask a question you'd like answered about your introduction. It should be a question about your writing, not the content of your essay. For example, you might ask the readers whether the question you started with works or not. Ask a specific, focused question that invites concrete feedback.

Once you've done that, go read your classmates' introductions and give them some feedback.

Final essay checklist

We're getting down to the end of the semester, and you should be proceeding along with your final essay. At this point, I've enjoyed keeping track of your blogs and postings as you conduct your research and begin your writing.

The final essay will be due Monday, Jan. 14 at the beginning of class. Remember, it's your final essay so don't procrastinate or make a solid effort to write it well.

As you prepare the final draft, please remember the requirements of the essay:

• At least five pages of well-written prose that follows standard written conventions
• A compelling introduction that grabs a reader's attention -as explained here
• An essay body that fully develops your topic and focus
• At least five sources cited and mentioned in your essay
• A works cited page with all sources

Good luck and enjoy.

A persuasive essay that you really want to do, trust me

In persuasive writing, the writer holds strong feelings about a specific issue and attempts to persuade his or her audience to agree with a certain point of view. You will select a topic that you feel strongly about, or at least one that you feel strong enough about to write a 700 to 900-word essay.

For this assignment, your subject should be a topic upon which you have strong feelings and can speak with some authority. You must take a stance on one side of a controversial issue and support your position with sound, specific arguments.

Your essay will be graded on the following:

• A strong controlling idea in the introduction
• Ideas organized in an order of importance sequence
• The use of specific details to support opinions
• The use of transition words to shift from one reason to another
• The use of varied, powerful sentence structure

A reminder: as we have discovered in class this year, the most important part of any essay assignment is selecting the topic. A persuasive essay is no different. Select a topic you are passionate about and one that will allow you to support your opinions with good reasons. It's not the time to drift off on an unfocused rant.

Rough draft due: Wednesday, Nov. 14. Final draft due: Tuesday, Nov. 20

Sharing a piece of your observation essay

This blog assignment is due before class starts on Monday, Oct. 15

Earlier this week you were assigned to write an observation essay, an assignment which requires you tell in detail about a specific event or experience. Your essay should include telling details and well-written, interesting sentences.

As you work on this assignment, I am going to ask that you post an excerpt from your essay in the comment section of this blog. It can be as short as three to four sentences, or as much as an entire paragraph. However, it must be an excerpt that you illustrate the following:

• Several telling, specific details that demonstrate a close observation of your event.
• Several well-crafted sentences, including those beginning with effective ING phrases or subordinate clauses.

Your excerpt is not a summary of your essay in progress. Instead, it is a paragraph that's part of your larger assignment. The purpose here is to share a piece of your work with your classmates and to provide opportunity for more feedback on your writing.

Before submitting your writing, remember to PROOFREAD!

The Observing paper

Your next assignment involves writing a detailed, close observation about an incident you have experienced or observed. It does not have to be an event of earth-shattering significance, just something you remember vividly. The more specific you can remember it and bring those vivid details into focus, the more interesting your paper will be.

However, you must write your essay in third-person narration. Even though it is an incident you recall or observed, you must write it as if you were simply an observer. Use the pronouns he, she, or they without referring to yourself directly.

The observation must be focused and limited, so you can develop it fully. Think about an event and describe all aspects of it, like the author of a novel might. If your event is too broad or covers too long a period of time, you will have difficulty precisely developing your idea.

Some possible topic ideas to help you get started: your most embarrassing moment, the most horrifying, or the most terrifying.

Rough draft due: Tuesday, Oct. 16. Final draft due: Thursday, Oct. 18

photo credit: sunflowers by marcomagrini on flickr.com

Practicing our descriptions

A cool breeze floated out over the BHS athletic field, washing over the dozens of students participating in high scool gym class. They played flag football while their teachers, each sporting sunglasses, watched as the students ran and jumped along the green artifical grass. Not one cloud marred the perfect blue sky. Some students did not play football. Making their way around the track, four different groups of girls walked and chatted. A bright yellow sun, heading towards the midday sky, shone bright and hot on the players and the spectators...


We all spent part of class observing gym class on Wednesday, a beautiful day that felt more like early summer than early fall. What observations did you make? How would you describe the sight?

You've read the beginning of my description. Now it's time to post your own version. Write it in the comments. But remember to use strong, active verbs and ING words to help convey motion to the scene.

Here's the catch. Your description - like mine above - cannot contain any adverbs. In other words, no words that end in -ly or similar words. Let your verbs and nouns do all the work. Try it.