Basic Ledes . . . Evolution Of A Lede

Let's look at some examples regarding the pool/lightning story. Here's one example:

After being struck by lightning last year in a city pool, a boy is suing the city for the cost of his medical bills.

Good lede. Solid. All you need to know is there. It's right. But is it the best way? You can build on it a bit by offering context, like this:

After being struck by lightning last summer in a municipal swimming pool and enduring injuries that may leave him in a wheelchair and destroy his sight and memory, Erik Barsh, 17, is suing the city.

This lede takes the basic and most necessary info and offers additional details that could have been left for the nut graf, but ones that the writer found a compact way to seamlessly fit into the lede. It still fits the parameters of a basic lede, but with value-added context.

In this next lede, the writer decided to jump beyond what I was looking for in this assignment by creating an anecdotal lede:

Instead of coasting through his senior year and applying for colleges, 17-year-old Erik Barsh sits at home to nurse his lightning-induced brain injury caused during a trip to the local swimming pool last year.

Again, this was not necessary in this assignment. And obviously how this lede works would depend on the nut graf. But this kind of lede is one of the more ambitious types to aim for. And we will be aiming for such lofty heights, as the semester goes on and you gain experience of confidence.

Again, let me emphasize these are ALL good ledes. But I do think there is a bit of a good-better-best ranking in play here.