Forms help struggling writers prepare Compare and contrast essays
For struggling writers, especially those with learning disabilities,
comparison essay writing poses major challenges include:
Knowing what to record.
Finding equivalent facts for both halves of the comparison.
Grouping related facts.
Summarizing the import of a group of facts.
If students are poorly organized or find handwriting physically
difficult, the problems are compounded many times over.
Giving students a simple word processing form
to use for their data collection helps struggling writers overcome
some of the challenges of organizing "comparison essay"
(or C&C) material.
Using the computer forms helps struggling writers several ways:
The forms specify information they will need later, eliminating
the need to redo research or refer to other documents for more
directions.
For example, students don't have to recall during data collection
that they will need the source's qualifications at the composition
stage.
The forms keep citation information with its data, reducing
the chance of losing the source information.
The forms eliminate rewriting repeated elements, reducing
the time and tedium of writing.
The forms can be manipulated readily.
This way of preparing material for writing is visual, hands-on,
and quick. Students who lack the short term memory or physical
ability to rewrite can move forms around a page. They can save
each version so they don't lose material.
The forms discourage plagiarism by calling for a single
sentence summary of every comparison point.
The basic data collection unit
The basic data collection unit I recommend for the compare and
contrast essay looks the same as the unit used in the basic five-paragraph
essay outline template. Here is what that basic unit looks like:
To be used in organizing material for a compare and contrast essay,
two changes need to be made to this basic template unit:
The wording has to change because in preparing a compare
and contrast essay students must gather and analyize their
evidence before they develop their working thesis statement.
Students need two sets of two data collection tables, one
set for each half of their comparison.
I like to give students a pair of tables colorized so students
can color code their data as they gather it. Students make a copy
of the unit and replace the generic data with their specific data.
Notice the change in language from the standard outline template.
Students are not looking for evidence to support a thesis: they
are just comparing similar aspects of two elements/items.
Keeping the sets together until they finish collecting data lets
students see easily whether they have information for both sides
of their comparison.
Suppose writers are instructed to compare and contrast brogwits
with frogels. Minus the citation information, the data would look
like something like this:
Some facts will have no value in developing the comparison. Students
can move them aside, but shouldn't discard them. Those facts might
be useful in the introduction.
Teaching tip: Create a motive to learn
Before you set struggling students to using compare-contrast units
with ELA curriculum topics, give them a chance to try it with comparisons
for another class of their choice.
It is often easier to sell struggling students on a writing activity
you have first shown students the activity has utility in a subject
area that is more interesting to them than English.
If you have students do the activity before you show its outside-of-ELA
significance they may not put effort into the activity, thinking
it's "just another dumb, English teacher thing."
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