This interactive graphic organizer helps students develop an outline for one of three types of comparison essays: whole-to-whole, similarities-to-differences, or point-to-point. Links to the Comparison and Contrast Guide give students the chance to get definitions and look at examples while they work. The tool offers multiple ways to navigate information including a graphic in the upper right-hand corner that allows students to move around the map without having to work in a linear fashion. Students can also click the Review My Map link and preview what they have written, return to the map for revisions, or print the completed map.

Visit this interactive tool at: http://www.readwritethink.org/materials/compcontrast/map/.

ReadWriteThink Lessons That Use This Tool

Analyzing Character Development in Three Short Stories About Women (9-12)
While reading about women who break from their traditional roles, students use comprehension tools to analyze similarities and differences among characters in three different short stories. This lesson fosters critical thinking and discussions about the influence of society’s expectations on a writer’s character development.

Compare and Contrast Electronic Text With Traditionally Printed Text (6-8)
The purpose of this lesson is to familiarize students with the similarities and differences between electronic text and traditionally printed text. Students examine the textual aids included in a textbook and compare them to the textual aids included in an educational website.

Comparing and Contrasting: Picturing an Organizational Pattern (6-8)
Using picture books as mentor texts, students learn effective strategies for organizing information that compares and contrasts. Students can then apply appropriate organizational strategies to their own papers.

Creative Communication Frames: Discovering Similarities between Writing and Art (6-8)
Build a comparative frame to explore the creative processes of writing and art as communication. Graphic organizers assist the development of comparative vocabulary and generate discussions of analogy and metaphor in art. Apply to a real or virtual tour of an art gallery to develop narrative, expository, or analytical writing.

Critical Literacy: Women in 19th-Century Literature (9-12)
Thoughtful exploration of two short 19th-century texts introduces questions of critical literacy: What is the position of the writer and what is the intended audience for a literary work?

Critical Reading: Two Stories, Two Authors, Same Plot? (9-12)
In this lesson, students read two short stories with the same title ("The Luncheon") that have been written by two famous authors. Students compare and analyze both stories to find differences and similarities among the characters and the plot and draw conclusions as literary critics.

Descriptive Video: Using Media Technology to Enhance Writing (3-5)
Grab a pencil, turn on a movie, and introduce your students to a new technology! Descriptive Video can build vocabulary and enhance descriptive writing. During this lesson, students watch a described segment of The Lion King and write an enhanced description.


Designing Effective Poster Presentations (9-12)
Students explore the genre of posters, review informational writing and visual design, and then design poster presentations to share in class or at a school-wide fair.

Examining Plot Conflict through a Comparison/Contrast Essay  (3-5)
This lesson invites students to identify types of plot conflict in literature. Using excerpts from picture books, as well as graphic organizers, students learn to identify plot conflict as well as the ways that the plot develops in relationship to the conflict. The lesson culminates with a comparison/contrast writing activity.

Exploring Compare and Contrast Structure in Expository Texts (3-5)
Students explore the concept of compare and contrast using expository texts. They learn clue words that signal a compare and contrast structure and how to use Venn diagrams for note-taking and representing new information learned from texts.

Exploring Setting: Constructing Character, Point of View, Atmosphere, and Theme (9-12)
This lesson uses canonical and non-canonical texts by Dybek, Dickens, Poe, and Morrison to help students understand how authors use language to create setting and, in turn, how setting constructs other elements in a literary work. The lesson offers extension opportunities through formal essays, film reviews, and poetry analysis.

Hoax or No Hoax? Strategies for Online Comprehension and Evaluation (9-12)
Using research-based online reading comprehension strategies and website evaluation tools, students explore hoax websites to determine their validity. Students then outline their own hoax websites.

In the Style of Ernie Pyle: Reporting on World War II (9-12)
This lesson has high school students use the Internet to enhance their study of World War II and encourages them to model their writing on that of Ernie Pyle, a respected war reporter from that era.

Native Americans Today (3-5)
Through this lesson, teachers can use children's nonfiction books and the Internet to help their students develop accurate, substantive information about Native American people in the present day.

Paul Revere: American Patriot (3-5)
In this lesson that allows curricular integration, students explore the life and legend of Paul Revere. Websites that describe Paul Revere’s life, his well-known ride, and his occupation are investigated and discussed. Information from these sources is then used for center activities and projects.

Solving the Math Curse: Reading and Writing Math Word Problems (3-5)
This lesson integrates math word problems with paragraph writing using the book Math Curse. Students create math word problems, read their problems to the class, and listen to and solve their classmates’ math word problems.


Teaching the Compare and Contrast Essay through Modeling (3-5)
This lesson uses brainstorming and modeling to encourage young writers to create their own texts. The teacher demonstrates the process of writing a comparison and contrast paper for the class, inviting them to collaborate in the process. Students continue the process of writing the essay on their own.

Using Pictures to Build Schema for Social Studies Content (3-5)
Student groups analyze images of the Boston Massacre. They study Paul Revere’s engraving of the massacre and compare it to the other images. This activity leads to a discussion on propaganda. Students demonstrate understanding of the Boston Massacre and propaganda through poetry writing, artwork, expository writing, and oral presentations.

Weekly Writer’s Blogs: Building a Reflective Community of Support (9-12)
In this digital rethinking of the traditional weekly writer’s logs, students analyze example writer’s blog entries then begin the habit of writing their own reflective weekly entries, which focus on the writing that they have done over the past seven days.