![]() They can do this with their thesis and then continue with their full essay. TEACHER TIP: Get your students to color-code their work too. The sentence frame can be simple! Check out these two examples that are color-coded. Those who need it will use it and those who don’t need it can use it as a mentor sentence for their own thesis. To help students at the beginning of their writing journey, provide a sentence frame for the thesis that’s needed. Depending on the type of comparative essay writing you’re doing, there’s a time and a place for each. Second is explanatory, which includes an examination of the similarities and differences between A and B. First is evaluative, which includes the results of similarities and differences between A and B. There are two thesis options for comparison essays. How to Write Comparative Thesis StatementsĪ thesis for a comparison essay is a bit different than your average thesis. These two shifts usually lead to more depth and better analysis in the final product. Push to ask ‘why’ this might be and it can lead to analysis for a strong comparative essay. This has now contrasted (on a simple level) the two items. Consider that oranges are grown in warmer climates whereas apples flourish in more temperate climes. So looking beyond the obvious will open that up. Sure this compares them but it doesn’t offer a contrast. Both are round fruits that grow on trees. This provides a bit more structure for those who need it and it gives more space to write too! ![]() TEACHER TIP: With VENN diagrams, shift from circles to rectangles and include lines for students to write. A graphic organizer like this is helpful for student organization and teacher check-ins. ![]() Once they do this, get them to fill out a Venn diagram. To encourage student to dig a little deeper I ask students to look for similarities where there are obvious differences and to look for differences where there are obvious differences. This is done as two separate steps! This way, there’s data or info to pull from when we shift to comparing. So you might need to take a step back and focus on a single text before attempting to compare it to another or jump into comparative essay writing altogether.įor example, when I want students to compare apples and oranges I no longer ask them to compare apples and oranges! Instead, I ask them to share what they know about apples and then what they know about oranges. It seemed like the same skill to me but for them, it was like I was asking them to skip a step – to jump right from reading two different texts to explaining how are they different/same. This seems like obvious advice but I was surprised by just how much my students skated on the surface of a topic when they were comparing as opposed to when they analyzed a single text. ![]() Do your students struggle with compare and contrast activities? Maybe they rely on the obvious at the expense of analysis? Are thesis writing, constructing outlines, and plagiarism a problem? If you answered yes to any or all of the questions, you’re not alone! My students struggled big time with comparative essay writing, so I had to change my teaching approach! Let me share some of my learning with you, and by extension, your students! How to Look Beyond The Obvious ![]()
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