Attention-grabber for "Night Calls."I need an attention grabber for this analytical essay. The story is "Night Calls" By Lisa Fugard. I'm...

Without knowing the thesis of your essay, I will try to provide
some attention grabber ideas that could be applied to almost any essay. As the first sentence of
your introduction, the attention grabber, in my opinion, is the least important sentence of the
entire essay. This is contrary to what most students are taught in elementary school (even the
name "attention grabber" is deceptive), but by the time you are writing analytical essays in high
school and college, teachers and professors are looking for the "meat" of the essay and do not
place as much emphasis on the opening sentence. Hopefully this will ease your stress over this
sentence in the future.

Examples of and advice for opening
lines:

• Using a question to segue into your
  thesis. Posing an open-ended, objective question, that ties into your thesis
  statement can be the fastest way to get into an essay, and therefore be very effective. However,
  be careful not to sound "cheesy" nor cliche. I advise students never to use "you" in an opening
  question and to stay away from "emotional" questions, as if analyzing the literary merit of a
  text depends on how your audience is feeling. This, to me, is a weak
  opening.


• Using a quote. Quoting
  someone famous, or even using a famous quote that is thematically related to your essay can be
  very creative. Quoting the text you are using can also work. I caution you, however, not to quote
  anything from the text which would better serve as concrete detail in your body paragraphs.
  Anonymous quotes are weak and I advise students to avoid
  them.


• Summary. If most of your
  analysis is thematic or relates mostly to the tone and purpose of the text, it is completely
  appropriate and often very helpful to provide a short plot-summary of the text (especially if it
  is fiction) as the opening to your essay. Try to limit this to less than 3 sentences
  however.


• Using something simple and to-the-point.
  This, to me, is the strongest opening for an analytical essay. Though this
  sentence should not be your thesis statement, it is like a quick
  introduction to it. I admit that most of my opening lines for analytical essays read nearly
  identically. I name the text by title and author, and state a generality about what I am
  analyzing in the essay. For example, "In "Night Calls" by Lisa Fugard, the author [does
  something: a broad statement about what you will prove in detail in your
  essay]."

I encourage you not to be bound by the
elementary school practice of using catchy opening lines anymore. Scholarly essays are too often
weakened by unintentional cliches, whether they are cliche techniques or cliche statements. Grab
your audience's attention in your analysis, through originality of thought throughout the essay.
Good luck.