Okay, let’s learn how to write a comparative essay!
The comparative essay is a challenging, but ultimately satisfying, opportunity to explore intertextual connections. By considering the different perspectives offered by carefully paired texts, you can enrich your understanding of both texts and draw new meanings from them. Ultimately, the best way to find an essay style that works for you is to experiment. Try a few different approaches, note the feedback you receive from your teacher, and use this to finetune your approach. Remember that examiners are not looking for a single, standard essay format. They are interested in your ideas and your genuine responses to the texts, and whichever structure best allows you to present these is the most appropriate structure for you.
To add depth to your response, consider a variety of textual elements in your discussion. While the topic may prompt you to focus on character or theme, your response will have more depth if you are able to draw other aspects of the texts into your discussion. You could note the impact of the narrative voice, reflect on how structure shapes a reader’s responses, consider the influence of genre on the texts’ construction, or acknowledge differences in style or authorial purpose. All of these elements provide you with opportunities to consider the texts as constructs, leading to a more complex and sophisticated analysis.
Need help with your comparative essays? Insight has two for each List 2 text comparison for English. Each high-level essay features annotations with assessor comments identifying the elements of the essay that work and areas for improvement, as well as tips on how to approach the essay topic and appropriate strategies for analysis.
Here is a standard comparative essay outline:
However, students in other English subjects and younger grades can also be asked to write comparative essays, or students may have similar assessments in other subjects, such as
When moving the discussion between texts, regardless of the overall essay structure you have chosen, use appropriate linking words and phrases to maintain fluency and cohesion. These links help your reader to understand the connection between the ideas you are discussing, whether they are similarities or contrasts.
Do your students struggle with compare and contrast activities? Maybe they rely on the obvious at the expense of analysis? Are thesis writing, constructing outlines, and plagiarism a problem? If you answered yes to any or all of the questions, you’re not alone! My students struggled big time with comparative essay writing, so I had to change my teaching approach! Let me share some of my learning with you, and by extension, your students!
The broad structure of a comparative essay is already very familiar to you, and consists of an introduction, several body paragraphs and a conclusion. The introduction should include a clear contention that alerts the reader to your response to the topic, as well as the main ideas your essay will explore. It must contain references to both texts. Similarly, your conclusion should summarise the points you have made and leave the reader with a clear understanding of your position on the topic. These elements are common to all analytical text response essays. The difference in a comparative response is in the way the body paragraphs are structured and organised. You essentially have two basic options for the body: the block approach or the woven approach.
Comparative Essay on Summer and Winter
Each text pairing has been carefully chosen to offer points of comparison, in terms of both similarities and differences. While you may have a preference for one text over the other, it is essential that you do not allow this to limit the scope of your discussion. One easy way to make sure that you are addressing both texts equally is to balance every point, example or quote from one text with an equivalent from the other. This can be done in the planning stages, giving you a wealth of material to use in your essay.
Comparative Essay on Books vs. Movies
You may find some overlap between 2 of these – for example social class often influences a person’s wealth or poverty; religion often effects attitudes towards sex and marriage; marriage can often be a financial necessity for those with limited job opportunities (mostly women, so this overlaps with gender roles). Choose your sections carefully so you don’t end up repeating yourself.
Comparative Essay Thesis Example
The point-by-point method alternates between the items. In this style, you pick a common point of comparison and describe the first item and then the second item. Here is an example of a point-by-point method essay outline.
Comparative Essay on Football vs Cricket
Let’s go back to our apples and oranges. Both are round fruits that grow on trees. Sure this compares them but it doesn’t offer a contrast. So looking beyond the obvious will open that up. Consider that oranges are grown in warmer climates whereas apples flourish in more temperate climes. This has now contrasted (on a simple level) the two items. Push to ask ‘why’ this might be and it can lead to analysis for a strong comparative essay.
Comparative Essay on Pet and Wild Animals
NEXT you need to think about structuring the essay itself. The most important thing to decide in advance is what aspect you wish to compare for each page/section but this may need to change to adapt to the Q.