Heres an Example of How Hooks

Work:

Essay Question: What caused the

Community in The Giver to eventually
become a flawed and twisted Utopia?

Thesis Statement: While the

Community started as a noble attempt
at creating a Utopia, eventually it lost
touch with its own history and
sheltered its members from all the
pain of the world, leading to its
downfall.
HOW COULD YOU BEGIN THIS?

1) Rhetorical Question:

What kind of person would you be now if

you could never look back at all the
mistakes youve made in your life? Can
people ever grow if they cant look back?
2) Vivid Image:

A stack of colorful bound leather

encyclopedias sit, gathering dust on shelves
stacked twenty feet high, untouched for
centuries. Their pages turn brown and dry
from neglect as they sit hidden from those
who need them most.
3) Bold Statement:

He who never learns history is often bound

to repeat it.
4) Analogy or Comparison

The rampant, hatred and anti-Semitism that

overtook Germany before and during World
War 2 led to one of historys most horrific
genocides. Adolf Hitler and the Nazis killed
countless millions of Jews in the name of
racial purity. Their attempt at building a
perfect race was eventually stopped and the
lessons we learned from this time in history
have stayed with us and made us more
tolerant people.
5) Extended Metaphor

The Community in Lois Lowrys novel The

Giver is like a horse with blinders on, never
being able to look around and appreciate
things or look back and see where its been.
6) Definition

Dystopia- a society characterized by misery,

squalor, oppression, disease and
overcrowding
7) A Quote

The worst part of holding the memories is

not the pain, its the loneliness of it.
Memories need to be shared.
8) An Anecdote

When I was a kid stores offered this thing to

pet owners called a shock collar. The
point of it was that every time your dog
would stray too far off, you could tug on it
and it would give a mild shock to your
dog and hed eventually learn not to drag
you and the leash all over the place. My
parents and I thought this was cruel. We
refused to buy it. We also spent most of our
time being dragged around by our German
Shepherd who which weighed about 125
pounds and never got properly trained. He
might have learned from a little bit of pain,
but we chose not to expose him to it.

Notice, each of these openings has a

relation to the overall thesis, but they
just HINT at the thesis. They dont
reveal what your essay is about
immediately.
Now watch me take number seven (quote) and turn it
into an intro:

The worst part of holding the memories is not the

pain, its the loneliness of it. Memories need to be
shared.

This quote, uttered by the Giver, a character in Lois

Lowrys novel, The Giver, speaks of the isolation felt
in a world without memories. Indeed, the Utopian
society at the center of the novel tries desperately to
remove all traces of human suffering from the lives
of its members. Books are kept locked up in a store
room and memories are kept locked up in the mind of
the main character, Jonas. While the Community
started as a noble attempt at creating a Utopia,
eventually it lost touch with its own history and
sheltered its members from all the pain of the
world, leading to its downfall.