Ask students to create an opening piece that is engaging, informative, and reader-friendly.  Robert Cormier says that he likes to grab readers by the lapels in the beginning of his young adult novels.  Have students try these options for openers:

¨ Write a sketch of the central character.  Include the significant details of her life, the important characters in it.  (You can expand your writing about these details and characters in later genres).

¨ Write a narrative of your main character performing the central activity of her life.  Kamau Brathwaite's "Basic Basie," for example, paints the picture of Count Basie making music at the piano.

¨ Write vividly about the central image of your topic.  In a paper about pitching legend Sachel Paige, you might simply describe in great detail a baseball, a thing he held in his right hand tens of thousands of times.  In a paper about Amelia Earhart you might begin by describing the view from the cockpit of her twin-engined Lockheed Electra.

¨ Find a memorable photo or create a picture that would be compelling for readers to lay eyes on first.

¨ Develop an extended metaphor that captures your character or topic or theme.

¨ Render a defining moment in your central character's life.  Brian McKnight began with a poem of the shooting of John Lennon.  He might have begun with the act of Lennon writing song lyrics or playing with his son or making love to Yoko, all defining moments in his life.  Blues vocalist Etta James might be depicted at the microphone on a small stage in a Chicago blues club, her eyes closed, sweat beaded on her brow, singing the blues.
 

From: Romano, Tom Blending Genre, Altering Style (Boynton/Cook, 2000)