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Writing Across the Curriculum: Our Compare & Contrast Print Guide
using comparative thinking as both a writing strategy and thinking tool in all content areas "Dear WritingFix, I am so very glad I finally ordered a copy of your Comparison and Contrast Guide. Already I have been incorporating its tools and ideas in so many of my lessons, and I can't believe how much smarter my students sound when we have class discussions. You've really opened my eyes. Thank you." (G. Palmer, North Dakota teacher)
Working as a team of fourteen K-12 Nevada educators, we examined Robert Marzano's research on effectively using comparison and contrast thinking to increase student learning, and we ended up creating a new print guide for teachers and administrators: The Going Deep with Compare and Contrast Thinking Guide, which is now used at all of the NNWP's Writing Across the Curriculum in-service classes. Below is the foreword I wrote for the guide, which introduces my personal philosophy on why comparing and contrasting is a tool we should all further explore as educators: "I sat in my small reading group listening to my students share their Venn Diagrams about two characters in the story. 'One is a boy and the other is a girl?' one student answered with a pensive look on his face. I wanted to be sarcastic and say, 'No kidding!, but I didn’t. I did feel frustrated that the child was in 6th grade and could not see past gender when finding similarities and differences in character traits. That same afternoon I came to the conclusion my students just did not know how to think deeper when making comparisons, and I knew it was my job to guide their learning. I started looking for inspiration and found it in several different places. "W.B. Yeats once wrote, 'Education is not the filling of the pail, but the lighting of the fire.' In 1923, Yeats won the Nobel Prize in Literature for writing inspirational poetry in such an artistic form that it was said to inspire the spirit of the whole nation. I guess you could say his poetry set people on fire. I decided that’s what I wanted to do, light the fire for my students. I wanted them to be able to compare and contrast ideas across the curriculum and then write about those comparisons in a thoughtful manner. The Yeats quote inspired me to ask the question, 'How do we light the fire in our students’ thinking? What can we use for matches to ignite this fire?' "So, I set off to find a few matches to get us started. I became deliberate in my approach to teaching writing. I was no longer just teaching a strategy here and there; I picked strategies based on how well the strategy could make my students think and write. "A 'match book' used for this guide is Robert Marzano’s book titled Classroom Instruction That Works: Research-Based Strategies for Increasing Student Achievement "Marzano discusses the importance of how the teacher structures identifying similarities and differences. It is not enough to throw a Venn Diagram chart out and say, “Okay, how are these topics the same and different?” Marzano’s four generalizations from the research and theory in 'Identifying Similarities and Differences' include: a) present students with explicit guidance in the identification of similarities and differences, b) ask students to independently identify similarities and differences, c) use graphic forms to enhance understanding, and d) identifying similarities and differences can occur by asking students to compare, classify, and to use the forms of metaphors and analogies. "The writing process is another set of 'matches' for our students. I have found comparing and contrasting to be highly effective in increasing students’ ability to formulate ideas during the pre-writing stage. Shirley Dickson’s article, 'Integrating Reading and Writing to Teach Compare-Contrast Text Structure: A Research Based Methodology,' reminded me how students need to be presented with text structures to fully understand how to write in the genre form we are asking of them. Having students compare one text structure with another and allowing them to use this as a launching pad for writing is a way to support all of our students in becoming better writers. "Let’s try to think about lighting the flame, instead of filling the pail." On this page at WritingFix, we provide lessons, tools, prompts, and resources that were inspired by the Going Deep with Compare and Contrast Thinking Guide. We also provide access to other resources at the WritingFix website that require comparative thinking. |
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Marzano and his team gathered studies by other researchers and discovered there were common strategies being used by educators to increase the achievement of students. In his book he shares the research numbers and explains how these strategies can be used correctly to enhance the performance of students. While I consider each one of Marzano’s effective strategies a 'match,' for this guide I will focus on the strategy found in chapter 2, 'Identifying Similarities and Differences.' It exemplifies how an effective strategy can spread across grade levels, and I think that is precisely what makes a strategy effective; it works at any grade level. Working with teachers in the 
Twenty Complimentary Resources from our Going Deep with Compare & Contrast Thinking Guide for Teachers |
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In January of 2008, the NNWP published a new print resource on using comparative thinking in the classroom. Fifteen K-12 Nevada educators had spent the spring of 2007 strengthening their use of comparative thinking assignments, and the tools, lessons, and resources they created were assembled into this 144-page resource. The purpose of this print guide: to inspire other teachers to strengthen their directing of students to think about similarities and differences before, during, or after a writing assignment. |
From the Going Deep with Compare and Contrast Thinking Guide
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From the Going Deep with Compare and Contrast Thinking Guide |
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Lesson:
Lesson Objective: Students will compare a favorite teacher to Mr. Falker, then write a nomination for their teacher for an imaginary "Most Memorable Teacher Award." Lesson Author: Carol Gebhardt, Northern Nevada fourth-sixth grade teacher and literacy trainer |
Lesson: Lesson Overview: Students will create a comic strip that shows knowledge of two historical characters' perspectives. Lesson Author: Kim Leslie, Northern Nevada fifth grade teacher |
Lesson: Lesson Objective: Students will write a poem that focuses on personal and interesting details from their own lives. Lesson Author: Denise Boswell, Northern Nevada fifth grade teacher and HistoryFix Coordinator |
Lessons Created by Teachers Inspired by our Going Deep with Compare & Contrast Thinking Guide: |
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In 2008, we began offering a new lesson-building workshop and in-service class in Northern Nevada. As part of this class, where participants receive a complimentary copy of our Going Deep with Compare and Contrast Thinking Guide, each teacher propose a new lesson, and the best of those lessons are posted here at WritingFix. Below, you will find the compare and contrast lessons that were proposed by teachers. The teachers use our proposal form when writing up a lesson. We invite teachers from all over to not only use the lessons below, but also to consider proposing their own lesson that we might feature here. Teachers whose lessons are accepted and posted will receive a complimentary copy of the Going Deep with Compare and Contrast Thinking Guide.
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Lesson: Objective: Students will write a poem where they discuss something that can't be asked for by another person Lesson Author: Dena Harrison, Northern Nevada middle school teacher |
Lesson: Objective: Students write a perspective journal entry from the point of view of a character inspired by the two mentor texts. Lesson Author: Margaret Barthel, Northern Nevada first grade teacher
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Lesson: Objective: Students create three pieces of CSI-like evidence that explains their interpretation of a poem and a song about the same fictional character. Lesson Author: Corbett Harrison, Northern Nevada high school teacher and writing trainer |
Lesson: Objective: Students create a poem for two voices after learning about tools used by community helpers. Lesson Author: Nakea French, Northern Nevada elementary teacher |
Lesson: Objective: Students will compare and contrast poems and lyrics to arrive at reasons why they are the same and why they are different. Students will then compose an original poem and original lyric, inspired by already-published examples of each. Lesson Author: Crystal Johnson, Northern Nevada high school teacher |
Lesson: Objective: Students write a five paragraph persuasive essay about differences in Europe before and after the Crusades. While researching for the essay, students will create trading cards about crusade topics. Lesson Author: Alan Lane, Northern Nevada middle school teacher. Alan posted this lesson at his classroom website and gave us permission to share the link. |
Lesson: Objective: Students create a friendly letter exchange between artists "feuding" over different artistic styles Lesson Author: Corbett Harrison, Northern Nevada writing trainer. |
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| Lesson: Notes on this lesson's comparison and contrast features: Two uses of comparison and contrast here: 1) students compose two paragraphs about a setting description, each paragraph exploring a different aspect of the place; 2) students compare and contrast the voice used in the student samples that are provided. |
Lesson: Notes on this lesson's comparison and contrast features: Students create two arguing voices that might be heard inside one character's head, then create a descriptive scene that shows that character in action. |
| Lesson: Notes on this lesson's comparison and contrast features: Students brainstorm the pros and cons of different topics, then plan a short essay that explores these opposites in an organized and well-paced draft. |
Lesson: Notes on this lesson's comparison and contrast features: Students explore similarities between abstract ideas and concrete nouns, ultimately creating a four-part poem that builds a metaphor. |
| Lesson: Notes on this lesson's comparison and contrast features: Students imitate Dickens' famous opposite-filled opening (...best of times, it was the worst of times...") with creative topics or with topics they're studying in school. |
Lesson: Notes on this lesson's comparison and contrast features: Two characters in Golding's classic story explore and experience the jungle setting with different eyes, showing the reader two distinctly opposite moods. Students imitate what Golding has done with a different setting. |
 Prompt: Serendipitous Simile Builder Notes on this prompt's comparison and contrast features: The on-line, interactive word game helps students create a comparative simile about a real or imaginary person, then use the simile to inspire a descriptive paragraph. |
 Prompt: Serendipitous Personification Notes on this prompt's comparison and contrast features: The on-line, interactive word game helps students create an interesting sentence that compares something non-human to something human. Students then use their personification to inspire a descriptive paragraph. |
 Prompt: Dueling Haikus Notes on this prompt's comparison and contrast features: Once your students have learned the basics of the haiku format, require them to write dueling haikus--two haikus on topics that can be compared or contrasted. |
 Prompt: Dueling Acrostics Notes on this prompt's comparison and contrast features: Once your students have learned the basics of the acrostic poem format, require them to write dueling acrostics--two acrostic poems on topics that can be compared or contrasted. |
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