Intros that score
"Answer the question in sentence one. Everything else in the intro is just proving you meant it."
Three parts, one sitting
This week is about the paragraph that sets the marker's expectations for the whole essay. Get the first sentence right and the rest of the essay has somewhere to stand.
What an intro must do
Three jobs, in order, every time:
- Answer the question, directly, first sentence
- Stake the thesis, your arguable claim
- Map the reasons, one line, the order the paragraphs will follow
Deconstruct one model, then write
Read the first model below together. Find the sentence that answers the question, the sentence that is the thesis, and the sentence that maps the reasons. Mark them out loud before looking at the labels. Then Josh picks a different question from the bank and writes his own intro, no model in front of him, 8 minutes on the clock.
Rough day? Deconstruct the model and skip the timed write. The 8 minutes will still be there next session.
Say it back, check it back
Josh says the three jobs back to you in his own words. Then read his fresh intro against them: does sentence one answer, is the thesis arguable, does the map name the order? The second model below is his phone reading this week.
Where the marks land
A wandering intro costs marks before Josh has written a single piece of analysis. Here is exactly where they come from.
Ideas. The thesis is the first sign the marker gets of whether Josh understood what the text is really doing. A vague thesis caps the Ideas mark no matter how good the paragraphs after it are.
Structure. The reason-map in sentence three is the essay's contract with the marker. It tells them what order the paragraphs are coming in, so every paragraph after it reads as planned, not stumbled into.
The fastest fix. If Josh only remembers one thing from this week: make sentence one answer the actual question asked, not the topic in general. That single habit is worth more than any clever opening line.
Two model intros, taken apart
Both questions are from the question bank, both quotes are already in Josh's bank on the essay page. Answer, then thesis, then map, every time. Do the first one live in the session; the second is Josh's phone reading.
What comment does the play make about the importance of reputation?
Analyse the significance of Emilia's character in the play.
The 8-minute write, inside the work block
Pick a different question from the bank to the two above. Cover the model. Three sentences: answer, thesis, map. Time it, and stop at 8 minutes even if it is not finished. An honest rough draft under time pressure teaches more than a polished one with no clock.
The follow-up
Read the second model, then reread your own
Read the Emilia model above and find its three jobs: answer, thesis, map. Then reread your own intro from tonight with everything covered except sentence one, fresh, like a marker seeing it for the first time. Does it answer the actual question, or just the topic? If not, rewrite sentence one only, right there. The thesis station on the practice page is there if you want another go from scratch.
The models above use only quotes already in your bank, so nothing new to learn here, just a new job for lines you already know. Sentence one is the whole lesson this week. Get that right and the rest of the paragraph almost writes itself.