Grab your readers’ attention by telling them something they don’t already know. It’s even better if the information is shocking, unusual, or strange. Consider, for example, how Salvatore Scibona opens his literacy narrative.

I did my best to flunk out of high school. I failed English literature, American literature, Spanish, precalculus, chemistry, physics. Once, in a fit of melancholic vanity, I burned my report card in the sink of the KFC where I worked scraping carbonized grease from the pressure cookers. I loved that job the way a dog loves a carcass in a ditch. I came home stinking of it. It was a prudent first career in that I wanted with certainty only one thing, to get out of Ohio, and the Colonel might hire me anywhere in the world. The starting wage was $3.85 an hour. I was saving for the future.