Tuesday, February 8, 2011

Sofie's Leads

Sew What?

Lead 1: Descriptive
    I watch as my mother sits on the ground, pinning a pattern to a piece of shiny blue fabric. She is making me a Halloween costume, as she has for many years past. This is a dying tradition in countless families in the United States. Most costumes that come to one’s door on Halloween are bought from specialty stores and catalogues that pop up a month before for their biggest profit of the year.

Lead 2: Rhetorical Question
    When was the last time you made something functional for you to wear? The answer for most is ages ago or never.

Lead 3: Compare and Contrast
    Many years ago, there was no other way to get clothes other than sewing them yourself or, if you were rich, hiring someone to do so. Today, almost no one does this at all. Near everything we wear is store-bought and most of that is imported.

Clarissa's Leads

Lead 1:
Austin has many trademarks. One is Tex-Mex food, a style of cooking which combines elements of Mexican and southwest - specifically Texan - cooking to create the trademark flavors. Tex-Mex pulls heavily on the use of cheese, chilies, and meat to flavor dishes, leaving vegetarians with little more than chips and queso to eat.

Lead 2:
My parents love Tex-Mex food, we generally go to Chuy’s on Friday nights. My mother get ones of the ‘Big as yo’ Face’ burritos or the ‘Chicka-Chicka-Boom-Boom’ enchiladas, my father tends to close his eyes and point to something. I, being vegetarian, get to pick between a chili with cheese stuffed into it, a vegetable enchilada,  quesadias (off the appetizers), or a tasteless salad I could make at home. There’s a reason I fabricate papers on Friday evenings.

Lead 3:
To say that Tex-Mex restaurants have good vegetarian meals is to say cheese makes a good main ingredient. Let me be clear: it doesn't.

Ariel's Leads

Lead #1: Descriptive

On a bright Saturday morning, I was, in fact, not sleeping in. Instead, I was winding my way through the farmer’s market crowd. Although environmentally conscious neo-hippies made up some portion of the population, there were also young families, couples strolling hand-in-hand, and bikers stopping to get breakfast. As I stood in line for my fresh tamales, I began to wonder what compelled this motley crowd to pass up H-E-B and buy their food here.

Lead #2: Compare and Contrast

Prior to the Industrial Revolution, most families made their own bread, milked their own cows, and picked their own corn. They saw their work adorning their tables on a regular basis. Farming was a regular occupation and provided for many people. Nowadays, most people buy their food from H-E-B, in brilliantly colored plastic bags and cans. Though this is a convenient way to satisfy one’s taste buds within twenty minutes, we have lost knowledge of where our food comes from and what is put into it.

Lead #3: Narrative

--------- ------------’s son had a problem: he couldn’t stop itching! Young ----- -------- constantly got painful red rashes. Even after several doctor’s appointments, he wasn’t diagnosed with anything, and trial medications did nothing for the suspicious rashes. Finally, --------- ------------ decided to change the soap he was using, making her own to substitute for those that he had used for all of his childhood. That was how she began to find herself selling body products at the Austin Farmer’s Market.