How to Say Goodbye to Awkward Essay Introductions for Good
A couple of years ago, I taught my seventh-graders how to start their essays with middle-of-the-action hooks . . . right before standardized testing week. When I saw the essays they wrote for their test, it was so painful it was actually funny. MULTIPLE students started their essays about bike helmets with, “Crash! Boom!” and they jumped from their hooks to their thesis statements with zero explanation about how the two were connected. Again—it was painful.
It’s not that students shouldn’t use action hooks for their essays. Done correctly, they can be quite compelling! But if the hook doesn’t gradually, logically, and clearly connect to the thesis statement, the introduction will do more harm than good.
Here’s how to fix it:
Before your students write their own essays, give the class some generic thesis statements and a variety of hooks that could introduce those topics. In my class, we use Q.U.A.C.K. hooks (question, unexpected fact, anecdote, controversial statement, or kidding around). You can write your own thesis statements and hooks on index cards, or you can grab pre-written thesis statements and hooks here.
Tell your students to match the hooks with thesis statements that they could logically introduce. This helps them think through how a hook and thesis statement should relate—something not all middle-schoolers do inherently!
Once your students have matched hooks with thesis statements, you may want to have your students order the hooks from best to worst. Discuss which hooks feel awkward, which ones are major snooze fests, and which ones might actually draw a reader in.
Let your students choose one hook and thesis statement and practice writing a “bridge” between the two. This part will take some trial and error. There’s no magic formula. However, it can definitely help to have your students read their hook, bridge, and thesis statement aloud to see how it flows. Something about saying the words out loud makes any choppiness more obvious and easier to fix.
When your students are ready to write their own essay introductions, encourage them to choose their thesis statement first, create an engaging Q.U.A.C.K. hook next (which you can read more about in this blog post), and focus on writing a bridge between the two as they did during their practice. This will help to give them some sense of direction as they write!
I hope your students wow you with their essay-writing this year and that you don’t see any crash-boom-thesis intros in your standardized testing — or any essays, for that matter! For fun and engaging essay-writing support, check out this bundle of essay games and activities.