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Looking for ways to engage your students in online literacy learning? Find more interactive tools that help them accomplish a variety of goals-from organizing their thoughts to learning about language.
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Student Interactive
Comparison and Contrast Guide
Grades | 3 – 12 |
Interactive Type | Organizing & Summarizing |
Tech Requirement | |
URL | http://www.readwritethink.org /files/resources/interactives /compcontrast/ |
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ABOUT THIS INTERACTIVE |
This interactive guide provides an introduction to the basic characteristics and resources that are typically used when students compose comparison and contrast essays. The Comparison and Contrast Guide includes an overview, definitions and examples. The Organizing a Paper section includes details on whole-to-whole (block), point-by-point, and similarities-to-differences structures. In addition, the Guide explains how graphic organizers are used for comparison and contrast, provides tips for using transitions between ideas in comparison and contrast essays, and includes a checklist, which matches an accompanying rubric.
Grades 6 – 8 | Lesson Plan | Standard Lesson
Creative Communication Frames: Discovering Similarities between Writing and Art
Graphic organizers assist the development of comparative vocabulary and generate discussions of analogy and metaphor in art as students go on a real or virtual tour of an art gallery.
Grades 3 – 5 | Lesson Plan | Standard Lesson
Teaching the Compare and Contrast Essay through Modeling
The compare and contrast essay is taught through modeling from the brainstorming phase through the first draft.
Grades 3 – 5 | Lesson Plan | Unit
Examining Plot Conflict through a Comparison/Contrast Essay
Students explore picture books to identify the characteristics of four types of conflict. They then write about a conflict they have experienced and compare it to a conflict from literature.
Grades 6 – 8 | Lesson Plan | Standard Lesson
Finding the Science Behind Science Fiction through Paired Readings
Students read science fiction texts and then use nonfiction texts to extrapolate the scientific principles presented as they discuss the "what ifs" within the context of scientific principles.
Grades 6 – 8 | Lesson Plan | Standard Lesson
Comparing and Contrasting: Picturing an Organizational Pattern
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.
Grades 6 – 8 | Lesson Plan | Unit
Tell and Show: Writing With Words and Video
Writers and film buffs alike will sharpen their skills in this multimedia unit as they work together to author and design a digital video.
Grades 6 – 12 | Lesson Plan | Standard Lesson
Comparing Portrayals of Slavery in Nineteenth-Century Photography and Literature
In this lesson, students analyze similarities and differences among depictions of slavery in The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Frederick Douglass' Narrative, and nineteenth century photographs of slaves. Students formulate their analysis of the role of art and fiction, as they attempt to reliably reflect social ills, in a final essay.
Grades 3 – 6 | Lesson Plan | Standard Lesson
The Tale of Despereaux: Fact or Fiction?
Using the book The Tale of Despereaux, students look a closer look at medieval times to see if the novel accurately portrays this time in history. Looking at key sections of the book, students will use the Compare and Contrast Guide and Map to help them decipher between fact and fiction.
Grades 3 – 12 | Student Interactive | Organizing & Summarizing
The Compare & Contrast Map is an interactive graphic organizer that enables students to organize and outline their ideas for different kinds of comparison essays.
Grades K – 12 | Student Interactive | Organizing & Summarizing
This interactive tool allows students to create Venn diagrams that contain two or three overlapping circles, enabling them to organize their information logically.