Research Paper Lead Strategies

Good historians pay attention to craft, especially for their lead paragraphs.

What strategies did these writers use?

Once upon a time in America, when automobiles were black and looked like tanks and laundry was white and hung on clotheslines to dry, there were two wonderful baseball leagues that no longer exist.  They were called the negro leagues.

Teammates:  How Two Men Changed the Face of Baseball

by Peter Golenblock

Let's look at another mentor text.  This was one is quite different.  What strategies does Burleigh use?

Chocolate.  It is that dark, pleasantly bittersweet, creamy, luscious, mouthwatering, impossible-to-forget taste.  Mmmmm.

Chocolate.  Hot chocolate on a cold night, chocolate cake topped with chocolate ice cream at a birthday party, or chocolate chip cookies plucked from the cookie jar before bed.  Chocolate.  Chocolate milk, chocolate brownies, chocolate fudge, chocolate pudding, chocolate cheesecake, and chocolate candy bars...

It is not surprising that there are so many chocolate goodies - most people in our country say chocolate is their favorite flavor.  What is really surprising is the story of chocolate itself.

Chocolate:  Riches from the Rainforest by Robert Burleigh

And one more!  You should know by now that I do everything in threes...

What strategies does Thimmesh use?

"Nothing quite like it had ever been discovered," explains paleoanthropologist Donald Johanson.  "The camp was rocking with excitement.  The first night we never went to bed at all.  We talked and talked.  There was a tape recorder in the camp, and a tape of the Beatles song 'Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds' went belting out into the night sky, and was played at full volume over and over again out of sheer exuberance."

Its resurrection began on a hot, sticky day in Hadar, Ethiopia, in November 1974.  The scientist who stumbled upon it, who discovered that first bit of elbow jutting out of the sediment, was, in fact, searching for it.  Had, in fact, traveled to the other side of the world hoping to find it.  Or somone like it...he wasn't that picky.  He was hunting hominids:  skeleton bones of human ancestors.

Lucy Long Ago:  Uncovering the Mystery of Where We Came From by Catherine Thimmesh