Transcript Beginnings and endings - Mrs. Maldonado's English Class

BEGINNINGS AND
ENDINGS
Models for Writers – Chapter 6
What makes for an effective beginning?
•A good beginning should catch a
reader’s interest and then hold it.
Writing introductions
General advice:
• Wait until the writing process is well under way
or almost completed before focusing on your
lead!!!!
• Once you actually see how your essay develops,
you will know better how to introduce it to the
reader
Nine effective ways of beginning an essay:
1. Anecdote
2. Analogy and Comparison
3. Dialogue/Quotation
4. Facts and statistics
5. Irony or Humor
6. Short Generalization
7. Startling Claim
8. Strong Proposition
9. Rhetorical Questions
Anecdote – a brief narrative drawn from current
news events, history or your personal experience.
Two nine-year-old boys, neighbors and friends, were
walking home from school. The one in the bright blue
windbreaker was laughing and swinging a heavy-looking
book bag toward the head of his friend, who kept ducking
and stepping back. “What’s the matter?” asked the kid with
the bag, whooshing it over his head. “You chicken?”
Analogy and Comparison – Pairing two seemingly unrelated
concepts to make an uninteresting topic interesting
In northern New England, where I live, stone walls mark boundaries, border meadows, and march
through the woods that grew up around them long ago. Flank-high, the walls are made of granite
rocks stripped from fields when pastures were cleared and are used to fence in cattle. These are dry
walls, made without mortar, and the stones in them, all shapes and sizes, are fitted to one another
with such care that a wall, built a hundred years ago, still runs as straight and solid as it did when
people cleared the land.
Writing is much like wall building. The writer fits together separate chunks of meaning to
make an understandable statement. Like the old Yankee wall builders, anyone who wants to
write well must learn some basic skills, one at a time, to build soundly. This [essay] describes
these skills and shows you how to develop them and put them together. You can learn them.
Building a stone wall is not easy: It is gut-wrenching labor. Writing is not easy either. It is a
complex skill, mainly because it demands a commitment of our own complicated selves. But
it is worth learning how to do well — something true of any skill. Solid walls do get built, and
good writing does get done. We will clear away some underbrush and get at the job.
Dialogue/Quotation
My roommate, Megan, pushes open the front door, throws her keys on the
counter, and flops down on the couch.
“Hey, Megan, how are you?” I yell from the kitchen.
“I don’t know what’s wrong with me. I sleep all the time, but I’m still tired. No
matter what I do, I just don’t feel well.”
“What did the doctor say?”
“She said it sounds like chronic fatigue syndrome.”
“Do you think it might be caused by stress?” I ask.
“Nah, stress doesn’t affect me very much. I like keeping busy and running around.
This must be something else.”
Like most Americans, Megan doesn’t recognize the numerous factors in her life
that cause her stress.
Facts and Statistics
• One out of every five new recruits in the United States
military is female.
• The Marines gave the Combat Action Ribbon for
service in the Persian Gulf to twenty-three women.
• Two female soldiers were killed in the bombing of the
USS Cole.
• The Selective Service registers for the draft all male
citizens between the ages of eighteen and twenty-five.
Irony or Humor
Irony
In Moulmein, in lower Burma, I was hated by large
numbers of people — the only time in my life that I
have been important enough for this to happen to me.
Humor
The most saluted man in America is Richard Sans.
Legions of schoolchildren place their hands over their
hearts to pledge allegiance to the flag, “and to the
republic of Richard Sans.”
Short Generalization
Washington is a wonderful city. The scale seems right, more
humane than other places. I like all the white marble and green
trees, the ideals celebrated by the great monuments and
memorials. I like the climate, the slow shift of the seasons here.
Spring, so southern in feeling, comes early, and the long, sweet
autumns can last into December. Summers are murder, equatorial
— no question; the compensation is that Congress adjourns, the
city empties out, eases off. Winter evenings in Georgetown with
the snow falling and the lights just coming on are as beautiful as
any I’ve known.
Startling Claim
I’ve finally figured out the difference
between neat and sloppy people. The
distinction is, as always, morals. Neat
people are lazier and meaner than sloppy
people.
Strong Proposition
Everyone agrees that we’ve got to improve academic achievement in
America’s public schools. So why is it that districts distract students from
core academics with a barrage of activities — everything from field hockey
to music, drama, debating, and chess teams? And there’s more: Drug
education and fundraising eat away at classroom time. All manner of
holidays, including Valentine’s Day, get celebrated during the school day, as
well as children’s birthdays. These diversions are costly. They consume
money and time.
Here’s a bold proposition: privatize school sports and other
extracurricular activities, and remove all but basic academic studies from
the classroom. Sound like sacrilege? Look at what these extras really cost.
Rhetorical Questions
“Doesn’t he realize this presentation is a waste of time?
Why doesn’t he just tell us what matters and get it over
with?” How many times have you heard (or muttered)
that? How many of us have been frustrated at seeing too
many presentations where PowerPoint or other visual aids
obscure rather than enhance the point? After one too
many bad presentations at a meeting in January 2000, I
decided to see if I could do something about it.
Beginnings to AVOID:
1. Apology
2. Complaint
3. Webster’s Dictionary (dictionary definitions)
4. Platitude ( cliché or stale remark)
5. Reference to Title
Apology
I am a college student and do not
consider myself an expert on intellectual
property, but I think file sharing and MP3
downloads should be legal.
Complaint
I’d rather write about a topic of my own
choice than the one that is assigned, but
here goes.
Webester’s Dictionary (dictionary definition)
Webster’s New Collegiate Dictionary
defines the verb to snore as follows: “to
breathe during sleep with a rough hoarse
noise due to vibration of the soft palate.”
Platitude (cliché or stale remark)
America is the land of opportunity,
and no one knows that better than
Martha Stewart.
Reference to Title
As you can see from my title, this essay
is about why we should continue to
experiment with embryonic stem cells.
Endings
Effective ending does more than simply indicate
where the writer stopped writing. A conclusion may
summarize; may inspire the reader to further
thought or even action; may return to the beginning
by repeating key words, phrases, or ideas; or may
surprise the reader by providing a particularly
convincing example to support a thesis.
Effective Endings
Effectiveness of any choice must be
measured by how appropriately it fits what
comes before it. You might consider
concluding with a restatement of your
thesis, with a prediction, or with a
recommendation
Restating thesis
In an essay contrasting the traditional Hispanic understanding of the
word macho with the meaning it has developed in mainstream American
culture, Rose Del Castillo Guilbault begins her essay with a succinct, twosentence paragraph offering her thesis:
What is macho? That depends which side of the border you come from.
She concludes her essay by restating her thesis, but in a manner that
reflects the detailed examination she has given the concept of macho in
her essay:
•
The impact of language in our society is undeniable. And the misuse
of macho hints at a deeper cultural misunderstanding that extends
beyond mere word definitions.
Recommendation
In the following conclusion to a long chapter on
weasel words, a form of deceptive advertising
language, the writer summarizes the points that
he has made, ending with a recommendation to
the reader:
•My advice to you is: Beware of weasels. They are
nasty and untrainable, and they attack
pocketbooks.
Now it’s your turn 
Read and annotate “The Case for Short Words” by Richard Lederer
• Class will then discuss and respond to “thinking critically” questions
• After class discussion, it will be your turn to write a paragraph
response to the prompt noted below:
WRITING PROMPT: What does Lederer use to strengthen his
conclusion paragraph? How does this ending leave an impact on the
reader?
You are responding to this prompt by formulating your own claim as to
how you believe Lederer successfully closes his essay. You MUST use
evidence from the reading to support your claim! (direct quote and
proper citation)
•