 Objective:
Good news! You've already learned most of the skills needed
for this lesson! You've learned and practiced the skills of
comparing and contrasting literary elements within a text.
In this lesson, the skills remain the same, while you'll be
working with two or more texts, rather than one.
You'll be reinforcing the key skills you learned and practiced
in Lesson 6, so you've already done the hard work! In Lesson
7 you'll use all the same skills, except you'll be comparing
the subject of a poem and a story, or contrasting the character
in a story to the speaker in a poem, or finding the comparison
/ contrast in the main ideas of two stories.
Just for review, let's go through the Objectives, Vocab
and Tips.
By the time this lesson is finished, you'll have tools
to help you make all kinds of comparisons between two different
texts: two stories, two poems, a story and a poem, a poem
and an essay, an essay and a story, or any combination of
two different reading passages. In this lesson you will:
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Review the meaning of cause and
effect, and compare / contrast, but apply the meanings
to elements in two different texts,
- Identify reading and writing strategies to help make
comparisons between different texts,
- Compare and contrast elements in two different literary
texts (this objective extends the skill learned in
Lesson 6),
- Score and evaluate
your answers.
Vocabulary:
These words will be used in this lesson. They might be quite
familiar to you, or you might want some review. For review,
just click the Helpful Tools button and open Vocabulary.
- Cause and Effect
- Compare and Contrast
Tips and Tools:
What is cause and effect?
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In a well-written story or poem, things don't just happen
for no reason. A cause is a starter or a reason.
Some events, statements, situations, or ideas cause
others things to happen. The result, or reason, or consequence
of a cause is an effect.
How to identify cause and effect:
- Try an "As a result of" statement with
events in the story.
- As
a result of the torrential rainfall, the football game
was cancelled, my boots were ruined, and the drought
was officially declared over.
- As
a result of the boy's many lies, the town did not believe
his cry "Wolf" when he really needed help
and the lambs were eaten.
- Be aware of sequence of events. If something important
happens in a story, think about what happened just before
that, or what several events led up to the important one.
- Try to tie things together. Sometimes there are several
seemingly unrelated events. And then they all come together
to cause a major event.
- In
"Weep No More, My Lady," unrelated sets of
cause & effect events create an unexpected match
between boy and dog, a satisfying resolution for Skeeter
and for My Lady.
| Cause |
Effect |
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Skeeter
is swamp born and reared.
He
hears a strange sound in the swamp at night.
(We
discover from the narrator's words, and Skeeter's actions,
he is a hunter, but never kills wantonly. He is curious,
brave, and comfortable in the abundant wildlife of the
swamp, just the kind of kid to befriend a lost dog.)
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He
goes to the swamp to see what is making the weird "gro-o-o." |
| Far
away, a dog owner decides to transport valuable Basenji
by car to a kennel in the north. |
One
Basenji escapes |
| Escaped
Basenji ends up in the swamp, lost, hungry and making
a strange chuckling sound. |
Skeeter
befriends My Lady, takes her home, feeds her and
we leave the story believing they were meant to be
together. |
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What does it mean to compare or contrast literary
elements?
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Compare means to find similarities,
or things that are alike, or the same. You might be looking
for similarities in two or more characters, events, ideas,
attitudes, or even themes.
Contrast means to find differences,
or things that are not alike. You might be looking for differences
in two or more characters, events, ideas, attitudes, or even
themes.
Remember this (if it helps):
- Compare. A pair (different
spelling) goes together. To compare, look for pairs
of things that go together, that are alike or similar.
- Contrast. Different.
- Black and white
are contrasting colors.
- Circle and square are contrasting shapes.
- Joy and sorrow are contrasting emotions.
- Gigantic and tiny are contrasting sizes.
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contrasting
colors
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contrasting
shapes
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contrasting
emotions
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contrasting
size
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compare
sports
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compare
shapes
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compare
animals
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compare
colors
(both found in fruit
colors, crayons, and hair dye)
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Are there graphic organizers I can use to help compare or
contrast characters or events?
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Of course and glad you asked!!
Here are some links to graphic organizers to
help you brainstorm or organize details to compare and or
contrast charcters or events in a story or poem.
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How do I organize my ideas to write about similarities or
differences?
- Start out with a clear and specific introduction.
- Example:
The spider and the octopus are alike in two ways. The
poem says . . .
- Example:
This
story shows cats and dogs have both similarities and
differences.
- Follow with specific details, evidence from text.
- Example
They
both have eight legs and they both are carnivorous animals
(eat meat).
- Example
While
they are both common house pets, cats avoid water at
all costs, while dogs like to swim. (This
sentence compares and contrasts. You might also want
to discuss all similarities, then discuss all differences.)
- Organization of compare / contrast writing.
- First list all similarities, then list all differences
- OR combine similarities and differences in one sentence
as in example above. You can write several sentences
in this format.
- End with a concluding sentence.
- Example:
There may be even more similarities between the spider
and the octopus, but these are two described in the
poem.
- Example:
The author lists even more differences and wants the
readers to choose the kind of pet they like.
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Are there special words or phrases I can use in my writing
to compare and contrast?
| both |
together |
alike |
equal |
uniform |
| parallel |
comparable |
equivalent |
same |
complementary |
| at the same time |
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These show differences
| different |
although |
while |
unlike |
various |
| individual |
unique |
distinct |
otherwise |
dissimilar |
| in contrast |
besides |
in spite of |
however |
on the other hand |
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In the next section, you'll see some examples of how the Tips
and Tools will help you with the skills of identifying
cause and effect, and analyzing similarities and differences
in two or more narrative passages.
Example
1 >>
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