Read Write Think: Writing Compare/Contrast Essay

Details

Activity Description

To use interactives you must install Flash.Use the Read Write Think activities to help teach how to write a Compare/Contrast essay. Use the Comparison and Contrast Guide (see Web Site Example) to introduce students to the methods of organizing (whole-to-whole, point-by-point, and similarities-to-differences) and composing comparison and contrast essays with an overview, definitions, and examples. There are also tips for using transitions between ideas, and a checklist which matches an accompanying rubric (pdf):

Use the Compare & Contrast Map as a graphic organizer to help students develop an outline for one of three types of comparison essays: whole-to-whole, similarities-to-differences, or point-to-point.

Preparation

• Preview the site, the Guide, and the Map.
• Gather example topics for compare/contrast essay: seasons, animals, transportation, characters etc.
• Also preview this list of lesson plans that use the Compare and Contrast Interactive to see if there are others you can use. The Lesson Plans are grouped by grade levels.

How-To

1. Using the site (see Web Site Example above), discuss Compare/Contrast essays.
2. Pair students mixing reading abilities.
3. Have them use the Compare and Contrast Map to map out a Compare/Contrast topic.
4. Share maps. Use them to prepare essays.

More Ways

The Student Interactives section (on the Classroom Resources tab) contains 55 tutorials, interactive tools, and printable resources for students. To find ideas for how to incorporate the interactives into instruction, there are links to applicable lessons. There are interactive activities on Learning about Language , Organizing and Summarizing , Writing Poetry , and more. For example, under Learning the Language there is Eye on Idioms , Flip a Chip on affixes and roots , and Word Matrixes .

Program Areas

• ABE: Adult Basic Education

Levels

• Low
• Intermediate
• High
• All Levels

Subjects

• Reasoning Through Language Arts
  • Essays
  • Mechanics (Capitalization, Punctuation, Spelling)
• Writing
  • Basic Sentences
  • Mechanics (Capitalization, Punctuation, Spelling)
  • Paragraph Skills

Tags

Conditions

You may link to ReadWriteThink from a school, class, educational, or personal website under the following stipulations: You acknowledge ReadWriteThink as the provider of the resource You charge no fee to access ReadWriteThink's resources.