need an opening sentence (not thesis)

1st im sorry if this is hard 2 read but i dont rlly hav time!
this is 4 my english 2 honors class...im writing a funnel style intro paragraph and my ideas 4 it so far are:
ppl and values
mentioning that the diff characters hav diff values
1 of these values is honor
then my thesis

i hav no idea how 2 start...plz help!!!

I started it and here is what I have so far:

Ideals and customs, are important in all cultures, but specific values differ from culture to culture. Values can be productive, like cleanliness and education, or unbeneficial, like crime and cruelty. One quality valued by many is having honor in oneself. A person who has honor in his or herself will always stand for he or she believes in. Many of the characters from Cry Freedom and Cry the Beloved Country possess this wonderful characteristic. One may believe that Stephen Kumalo, Stephen Biko, and Donald Woods are the three characters that best demonstrate honor.

Please tell me if its good so far and what I should do to improve it.
And in the last sentence should the "may" be "might"???
Thanks,
Chelsea

I changed the Donald Woods to Theophilus Msimangu, in case that is at all important.
Can someone please help me soon because i need to finnish this tonight so I can bring it to the school writing clinic to be checked tomorrow.

Greetings!

I'm happy to help you with some editing suggestions!

Ideals and customs [ delete ,] are important in all cultures, but specific values differ from culture to culture. Values can be productive, like cleanliness and education, or harmful like crime and cruelty. One quality valued by many is honor. A person who has honor [delete "in his or herself"] will always stand for what he or she believes in.

One may believe that Stephen Kumalo, Stephen Biko, and Donald Woods are the three characters that best demonstrate honor. - I don't think "may" is right here. You can just leave out that whole phrase "One may believe that" and start with the name of the first person. There is no need to qualify it.

I hope this helps!

Thanks,

Sarah, EssayForum.com

Wow, I can't believe I didn't notice all of those little typos!

Thanks!!!