Compare and Contrast — What worked v. What didn’t

Ever had a lesson go wrong wrong wrongwrongwrong? Just awful. Just bad all around? how did you know it went bad? What were the tip-offs? What led you to understand you were teaching it incorrectly?

For me it was the fact that my kids spent the entire hour talking during the lesson (an interactive powerpoint; one they helped me build from scratch), and the fact that when I asked: “Who doesn’t understand what we’re doing here?” nearly all of them raised their hands.

And it took me two classes to figure it out. That’s not good, but better than my prior performances. So, I decided to change things up and took it from a different perspective.

I gave the students the following handout and asked them to copy the following notes on the back side. (click the image to download the handout)

Introduction: Name the subject of your essay.

• Define the subject of your essay.
• Explain that you are examining the similarities and differences between two versions of your subject.
• List the topics you’ll explain — (that’s your thesis statement)
• 7 sentences minimum

Subject # 1 — Explain in 7 sentences
Subject # 2 — Explain in 7 sentences
Subject # 3 — Explain in 7 sentences
Conclusion: Remind me what you wrote in the essay.

• Explain in one sentence each the three subjects discussed
• Give me your thoughts on the subject.
• Which is better, and why is it better?

I told them: We’re going to look at two different texts and find out the similarities and differences between them. We’re going to Figure out which is better. We’re going to write an essay about them, and it’s only going to take 15 minutes.

They didn’t believe this, but one of the first two classes actually went through the motions and created a short essay in the powerpoint. Each class saw the results, but it wasn’t until I asked them to practice on the real topic that any other class seemed to understand how this was done.

First, we looked at this picture. At first, it seems there’s no reason to look at this picture, but I explained that it’s one of the most famous images in the world. It’s so famous I have a print hanging on the wall in my room. It’s so famous it’s been used in movies. It was used in the movie “Scream,” and it’s so famous that it was used in a movie we connected to “The Ransom of Red Chief.”

All of my classes made the connection between “Red Chief” and the film (I say ‘film’ because this is a real film; it’s not the trash kids watch today; it has a plot and interesting, definable characters; it has a flowing movement and it has subtext) “Home Alone,” starring Macauley Culkin.

In the movie Macauley shaves his face, puts on aftershave and then claps his hands to his face. He does it several times throughout the film, and the director has said he used “The Scream” as inspiration. But I’m only using the picture to show how we compare and contrast two different texts.

I let the students describe the picture and we wrote some of their words and phrases on the board before I told them the next step was to compare that initial image with a different version. Then I showed them the black and white version.

Here’s where the handout comes into play.

I had a big version of the above handout on the board and I had the kids pick three topics to discuss. Most picked the obvious topics: Color, Detail, and the third came after an explanation.

Color
The students pointed out that the differences between the two images stars with color.
In the color version, everything’s kind of smeary — it doesn’t seem to make sense.
In the Black and white version, everything’s filled with lines — it’s confusing.
In the color version we can tell that there are differences between earth and sky,
but in the B&W version, we see the actual difference between earth and sky.
In the color version we notice that the main character is actually a person.
In the black and white version, we’re confused — is this actually a person, or is this an alien?
We’re not sure.

Detail
And our worry deepens when we consider the detail.
Is this really an alien? Because in the black and white version he/she seems more human.
There are more facial features in the B&W version. here are eyebrows and sunken cheeks.
In the color version we only see the open mouth.
In the color version we can see the people behind tha main character, but in the B&W version we see everything.
We begin to make judgments about this image and think that those people are running away from the main character.
We begin to think there’s something wrong.

Which is why we are happy when we read about the meaning behind the painting.

Munch himself said of the painting:
I was walking along a path with two friends—mumble the sun was setting—suddenly the sky turned blood red—I paused, feeling exhausted, and leaned on the fence—there was blood and tongues of fire above the blue-black fjord and the city—my friends walked on, and I stood there trembling with anxiety—and I sensed an infinite scream passing through nature.
—Edvard Munch

Which we further explained with the story of Krakatoa as inspiration

The Story
really changed our view of the two works. The story helped us understand the color in the color version.
The story really bothered us in the B&W version because it looks like the picture shows a guy screaming about how much he loves the beach.
The color version shows the black ground and makes us realize why ‘nature [was] screaming.’
The B&W version shows us the detail of th picture and that’s it.

No matter what the classes thought of the paintings, the practice with Venn diagrams helped us understand how to build an essay.

But our essay isn’t on “the Scream,” it’s on the two different versions we’ve seen concerning “The Ransom of Red Chief.” We’ve read the story and watched the movie, and now it’s time to choose which is better.

Today, we had the chance to fill out the Venn Diagrams for something other than our own topic, but at the end of class we all chose one thing we’d talk about for our own essays. We chose Characters.

Here’s what my kids saw:

Similarities
• All the characters are the same.
• Bill is still the dumb one who gets hurt.
• Sam is still the smart one who doesn’t get hurt.
• Red Chief is still the jerk kid who doesn’t seem to understand he’s the jerk kid.

Differences
• Red Chief has red hair and freckles in the story; he has blonde hair and no frecjles in the book.
• Bill gets hurt, sure, but he doesn’t get hit by any bricks or rocks in the movie.
• Bill gets hit by bricks and rocks in the book.
• Bill gets bit by a snake in the movie.
• Bill doesn’t get bit by the snake in the book.
• Same with the spider — yes in the movie, no in the book.
• There’s a mom in the movie, but no mom in the book
• There’s no car in the book, but they drive a car in the movie.
• etc.

We completed the Venn Diagram for character in about 30 seconds. We listed 11 similarities and differences, and then I asked: How many sentences can you make out of our bullets?

“About 11.”

How many sentences am I asking for in each paragraph?

“7″

How easy will it be to write this paragraph?

“Dude, why didn’t you show us this earlier?”
“Can I write about the similarities and differences in conflict next?”
“What about Plot? Can we talk about plot?

And I said: Sounds like your essay is almost done: I just gave you the character portion, and you already have notes on the plot and conflict.

What I didn’t mention here is that we actually did talk about Thesis statement and how to build one. I didn’t mention that we practiced making thesis statements, and I didn’t mention that we wrote practice thesis statements. I also didn’t mention that the last three classes of the day actually made it through this exercise pretty quickly and thoroughly, and that many kids actually got to work.

And what I didn’t mention was that I told each class I’d messed up during the first two classes and that I asked for the remaining classes’ help in perfecting this lesson for the following classes. By the end of the day, it went perfectly. By the end of the day, it seemed that the students actually believed me when I told them (as they walked through the door): You should be able to write an essay in 15 minutes, if you need to.

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