Basic Organization of the Introduction 1. Grab the reader’s attention. 2. Identify your sources. 3. Give your thesis.

Grab the reader’s attention Identify Your Sources Give your Thesis

Start your essay with a “hook” strategy: an intriguing question a personal story a comparison an apt quotation (3 to 5 sentences)

What motivates each author to become passionate about learning? Remember the topic!

Start with an intriguing question. Does everyone have the ability to become passionate about learning? If the answer is yes, then why are so many students bored with learning? If the answer is no, why force people to go to school and learn? I believe that all people can become passionate about learning if they are sufficiently motivated. In the short stories, Prison Studies, Take this Fish and Look at It, and How to Mark a Book, each author shows that people can become passionate about learning when they are sufficiently motivated. The thesis is the last sentence of the introduction.

Start with a personal story. I never really enjoyed learning until I enrolled in a poetry class at GCC. On the first night of class, I was fascinated by everything in the course—the teacher, the poems, the discussions. And I realized that night that there had been something missing in my education up to that point: passion. I realized, too, that I had to pursue a whole new path from the one that initially brought me to college. Like me, Malcolm X, Samuel Scudder, and Mortimer Adler also got “swept away” by their learning experiences. Although all three men became passionate about learning, what motivated their passion differed from situation to situation.

Start with a comparison. Sometimes the learning process plods along as stubborn as a mule. No matter how much pushing, pulling, feeding of apples and carrots, or threatening, the mule stays put, or inches forward in tiny baby steps, or kicks and bucks, or takes more backward than forward steps. At other times, learning takes off, as if nothing can stop it. It seems nearly effortless, like Sea Biscuit flying ahead of the other horses, seemingly out of nowhere. But was it really out of nowhere? The experiences of Malcolm X, Samuel Scudder, and Mortimer Adler suggest that a passion for learning does not occur out of the blue but instead can be traced to variety of causes.

Start with an apt quotation. Confucius once commented elegantly on how people learn. He said, “I hear and I forget. I see and I remember. I do and I understand.” According to these words, the more active a person is, the more he or she participates in the learning process, the more likely it becomes that he or she will truly understand. After reading the essays of Malcolm X, Scudder, and Adler, I would also add that being active in the learning process leads to more passionate learning. For all three writers, the activities they engaged in were the main factors that motivated them to learn.

Give Your Thesis Statement (1 sentence) 1.Thesis: the main idea of your essay. 2.Respond to the specific topic. 3.Use a few key words from the topic to show you are focused. 4.Keep the thesis clear and simple.