1. Introductory Paragraphs PURPOSE & CONSTRUCTION

2. Hooking your reader  There are several ways to grab your reader’s attention  A fact or piece of information  Nearly two hundred citizens were arrested as witches during the Salem witch scare of 1692. Eventually nineteen were hanged, and another was pressed to death (Marks 65).  Dialogue from the text  “We are what we always were in Salem, but now the little crazy children are jangling the keys to the kingdom, and common vengeance writes the law!”  A quote from another source  “To be, or not to be, that is the question” (3.1.57). This familiar statement expresses the young prince’s moral dilemma in William Shakespeare’s tragedy Hamlet, Prince of Denmark.

3. Hooking your reader, part 2  A description of the setting  The simple community of Salem, nestled in the wilderness of Massachusetts, is fraught with paranoia.  A metaphor or an analogy  An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind. This cycle of spite and destruction runs its course in Arthur Miller’s The Crucible…  A question designed to make your reader think  “At what point does a person need to abandon their morals in order to save themselves?”  “How would someone cope with gaining power that they had been denied their entire life?”

4. What do you need in an intro paragraph? Hook 1-2 sentences basic summary of the whole play/text 1-2 sentences Define your terms-where do you see your topic in the play? What does the reader need to know before they read your thesis? 2-3 sentences THESIS 1 sentence

5. An Example  “Happy Hunger Games! And may the odds be ever in your favor” (Collins 68). In Suzanne Collins’ novel, The Hunger Games, when a young girl tries to protect her family, she unintentionally shakes the foundation of her dystopian society. Katniss and Peeta must survive the massacring games they’ve been thrown into, but they also must endure their daily lives in the deprived district. Since the government has made life incredibly difficult for those living in the neglected districts, Katniss and Peeta declared they would not let the games change who they are or what they believe in. Through Katniss and Peeta’s difficult trials, Collins reveals the truth that fighting for survival may mean losing their humanity and dignity in the process.