Opening Hooks

Subject: Language Arts

Grades: K-5 (Ages 5-11)

Standards - Language Arts

• Uses skills and strategies to draft and revise written work
• Uses skills and strategies to organize writing
• Writes in a variety of forms of writing
• Writes for a variety of purposes
• Writes for a variety of audiences
• Uses stylistic and rhetorical aspects of writing

Instructions

1. Prior to the lesson, select a piece of writing, either written by yourself or a previous student, with which to model the lesson. Also, gather several books that begin with great leads. Consider titles by Gray Paulson, Cynthia Rylant and Eve Bunting.
2. Share with students that great leads hook the audience in the first few sentences of a piece, and make them want to continue reading. Writing great leads is part of the author’s craft. Read the leads from the books you selected prior to the lesson, and discuss with students how they impact the reader.
3. Open the Opening Hooks.kia activity, as shown below, from the following location: Kidspiration 3 Teacher menu>Teacher Resources Online>Lesson Plans>Grades K-2 or Grades 3-5>Reading and Writing>Drafting and Revising. Save the Zip file and open the activity. Review it with students and tell them that they will use this activity to craft different types of leads for a piece of their writing.
    

4. Share with students the piece of writing you selected prior to the lesson. Explain that you are going to model writing leads for this piece using the Kidspiration activity. To view an example completed activity, as shown below, open Opening Hooks.kid from the following location: Kidspiration 3 Teacher menu>Teacher Resources Online>Lesson Plans>Grades K-2 or Grades 3-5>Reading and Writing>Drafting and Revising. Save the Zip file and open the exemplar. Note: Some categories of leads may require research. For examples of leads that required research in the Opening Hooks.kid activity, see the leads written under the Daunting Data category. For these leads, the Internet was utilized.
    

5. Have students complete the activity independently, using a piece of their own writing. Remind them that great leads hook the audience and make them want to continue reading the text. Also, remind them that all types of writing, even informational writing, can hook the audience if the author has practiced the craft of writing interesting leads. Following the activity, encourage students to use the lead they like best for their selected piece of writing.

    

Assessment

• Confirm that students’ leads are the correct type.

Lesson Adaptations

• Students may write more than one lead for each category by adding additional symbols.
• After students complete the activity, have them form small groups and discuss which leads best grab the audience’s attention.
• Prior to teaching the lesson, have students record leads from books that they find especially well-written.