Academic Moves for College and Career Readiness, Grades 6-12. Jim Burke

fill out a Venn diagram in their native languages and then translate them into English for discussion, presentation, and writing.

      Discussion, Presentation, Technology, and Multimedia

       Debate. Compare-and-contrast assignments lend themselves to debate: Have pairs of students present similarities (student one) and differences (student two) to the class, and then respond to one another to explain why the similarities or differences are more important to an understanding of the two items. Such debate can be structured as a formal exercise, with time limits, guidelines, and patterns of response, or as an informal, on-the-spot activity during a class period.

       Evaluate. An excellent tool for teaching reliability and credibility of sources is to have students compare and contrast web source material. Find two pages on the same topic (or have students find the pages on assigned topics) and do a comparison and contrast: which is more reliable, trustworthy, and scholarly and why?

       Track. As with argument, students can set up an online tracking tool, such as a table in MS Word, to catalog similarities and differences as they read. Then, when they need to organize and reorganize this material in preparation for writing, they can click and drag chunks of text or notes to form their own organized method of presentation.

      YouTube Moment: Having students compare and contrast two scenes from two movie versions of the same work is always an interesting exercise (and easy to do with commonly filmed works like Shakespeare plays). For other works, however, your students can easily find student-generated “trailers” online with a simple search. Have them find two trailers—official or unofficial—for a book or text and compare and contrast the ideas, images, and techniques used. Then have them create—and post—their own book trailers.

      After: Producing Work That Compares and Contrasts

      Student Example 1: The Analytical Essay

      Peter, an eleventh grade student, read Gilman’s Herland in a literature circle with four or five fellow students. A key component of the literature circle was the element of choice:

      1 Students ranked books that interested them from a short list provided by the teacher. The teacher gave a book talk about each of the books before students made their rankings.

      2 Based on their rankings, the teacher placed the students in groups of four or five and assigned them to a book.

      3 Groups worked together to compose a reading schedule (within a specified time frame) and a contract that outlined expectations for the group members.

      4 On specified class days, the group met, discussed the book so far, generated questions, and took notes (which they also turned in to their teacher).

      5 At three unannounced times during the reading unit, the teacher had group members fill out anonymous evaluations of group members and self-evaluations, which were used as part of the assessment for the reading project.

      6 Toward the end of their reading, each student presented a possible essay topic to the group. The group discussed the topics; then, each person in the group chose one of the topics to respond to.The topic Peter chose was not the one he invented, nor one others in his group chose to address, but he liked the idea: Compare and contrast the male and female characters in the novel. Peter decided he could structure a strong essay with two layers of comparison and contrast, making connections not just between the two genders but between the characters within each gender, as well.

      Here is an excerpt from Peter’s paper:

      Peter’s Essay Excerpt

      Student Example 2: Historical Writing

      Compare-and-contrast assignments are a staple of many history assignments; comparing how one event unfolds to another prompts students to think both globally and specifically and to examine broad historical movement as well as specific evidence. As a tenth grade Advanced Placement (AP) World History student, John encountered these tasks frequently, but with a new twist: the challenge of writing on demand in a limited period of time. His teacher encouraged him to be, above all, clear and to the point. For a history paper written in a limited time frame, she also suggested some specific guidelines:

       Write a one-sentence introduction that clearly states the comparison

       Write about one item first and then the other

       Include details with clear transitions

       Include at least one point of comparison and one of contrast

      The task to which John responded here was similar to actual AP questions, but his teacher simplified the prompt to help students focus on the task of comparison. Here is John’s first draft:

      Both Latin America and North America had major influence on global networks starting in 1750 while they were colonies supporting Europe up until the present, where they trade for their own benefit and wealth as independent nations.

      Starting in 1750, Latin America was a group of European colonies, mostly Spanish and Portuguese, and they contributed to new agricultural products that were shipped to Europe in order to enhance trade for their country. They also contributed to the countries’ wealth because they had to continually keep up trade with them in order to sustain and grow its economy. Another way these colonies affected the global trade was the European countries would buy the goods and then resell the goods to other neighboring countries or colonies in another region. The Latin American colonies did eventually gain independence and begin their own countries, but these countries continued to trade with the European countries, but they also put the “middleman” out of the equation and traded directly with the countries that Europe had resold the goods to.

      The North American region has a similar story. It was a group of colonies owned mainly by Britain. These North American colonies produced goods mainly for Britain and had introduced new crops and goods to the European marketplace. The peoples in this area soon also gained independence, but continued to maintain trade with the European countries. They were also able to take the European power out of the picture and trade with other countries whereas they had had to go through European countries first. North America was slightly different from much of Latin America, however, in that it had a large amount of imported slaves that were relied on for a majority of labor, and when slavery was abolished, the production rate dropped dramatically, but then they began to receive a lot of indentured servants that took on a lot of labor and increased production again and became the trading and economic powers that are present today.

      Work Cited

      Gilman, C. (2014). Herland. Newburyport, MA: Open Road Media.

      Scaffolding Comparison With Webb’s DOK

      What Peter’s Group Did

      When Peter’s teacher wanted each group in the class to construct useful prompts for possible essays, she created a series of instructions that helped each group develop their questions:

       Level One (Recall)

       Sample Task: Identify all central characters in the work.

       What Peter’s Group Did: Discussed the meaning of “central” and then made a list that included the six most obvious characters, three men and three women.

       Level Two (Skills)