Leads Hook, Line,

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Leads Hook, Line, Sinker

• How to snag your reader from the very beginning!

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Howd you like to come up and . . . write with
me sometime ? ? ?

• This is a lead, but is it the kind you want your
  kids to write?
• Make sure you know what kids are doing on the
  Internet!

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The toughest part is the beginning!

• For me, the big chore is always the same how
  to begin a sentence, how to continue it, how to
  complete it.
• Claude Simon
• Leads have given me great difficulty.
• Donald Graves

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Great Opening Lines

• Wheres Papa going with that ax? asked Fern.
• Call me Ishmael.
• Once upon a time . . .
• His mother was ugly. His father was ugly. But
  Shrek was uglier than the two of them put
  together.

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Wanda Lincoln suggests categories for leads

• Action
• Character
• Definition
• Greeting or command
• Key word
• Question or riddle
• Quotation
• Setting (time/place)
• Startling fact or opinion
• Summary of key ideas (Suid, p. 70)

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Ralph Fletcher says

• The lead is the first real chance to grapple
  with the subject.
• Dramatic leads
• Start in the middle
• Sound effect
• Dialogue
• Leisurely leads (not necessarily short)
• Beginning at the end leads
• Intro the narrator leads
• humor
• (Fletcher, What a Writer Needs, p. 82-88)

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More about Leads

• Dramatic leads
• Start in the middle
• Sound effect
• Dialogue
• Leisurely leads (not always short)
• Beginning at the end leads
• Intro the narrator leads
• Humorous lead

• Intriguing generalization
• Unreliable narrator
• Misleading leads
• Ambiguous leads

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More from Fletcher . . .

• Intriguing generalization
• Unreliable narrator
• Question
• Intriguing detail
• Sentence fragment
• Misleading leads (protects the surprise element)
• Ambiguous lead (purposeful lack of clarity)
• (Fletcher, Live Writing Breathing Life Into Your
  Words, p. 78-87)

• Grabber
• Moody leads
• Statistic
• Disturbing fact
• Narrative

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From Vygotsky to . . . A little theory

• Learning is a social activity
• Children, with a teachers help, can write beyond
  their level

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Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi says (thats easy for
you to say!)

• knowledge that is seen to be controlled from the
  outside is acquired with reluctance and it brings
  no joy
• Michael Smiths students get excited, especially
  when the teacher doesnt give you a limitation. .
  . and
• I like writing without having any guidelines to
  follow. . . (Smith, p. 33)

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Lucy Calkins says

• Leads can be written in the drafting or revising
  stage
• Each lead is a different tack toward a subject
  point of view, tone, or field of vision
• Leads are points in sequence, not different
  approaches to the subject
• A good mini-lesson on writing leads uses a
  timeline
• (Calkins, p. 86, 91, 143)

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George Hillocks adds

• When Calkins (1979, 1981) writes about helping
  children find leads statements that put the
  reader into the middle of the action she
  assumes that the child wishes to achieve some
  effect on the audience through the use of that
  lead. Otherwise, it clearly would make no
  difference . . . (p. 80).

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From theory to practice . . .

• picture writers and readers as 2 people on the
  same bicycle. As writers, we can steer but the
  readers have to pedal. If we dont convince them
  that they should keep pedaling, the bicycle will
  stop and well both tumble off. A text is
  nothing if the readers stop reading.
  Peter Elbow
• (Cooper, p. 54)

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Donald Graves says

• Students ages 6 - 9 need 20 minutes a day
  composing
• leads have given me great difficulty.
• Data show writers who learn to choose topics (and
  leads) well make the most significant growth in
  both info and skills at point of best topic.
• (Graves, p. 21, 178)

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Leads are like a box of 128 crayons use
them all !!!Ralph Fletcher(Fletcher, Live
Writing, p. 87)
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