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Compare & contrast

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Paper 1 at HL asks you to compare and contrast two texts. Comparative analysis is a skill that requires practice. Using Venn diagrams or tables is a great way to brainstorm together on the similarities and difference between two texts. Ask yourself: 'What do these texts have in common?' 'How are they different?'

In this lesson you will practice comparing and contrasting two texts that appeared on a former exam. Each text is an autobiography; one written by Lee Iacocca and the other by Winston Churchill. You may want to see the text type page on memoirs provided in the resource section of this website for further understanding of autobiographical texts. 

Focus on one text only

Divide the class into two. Each half of the class only focuses on one text. One half focuses on Text 1. The other half focuses on text 2. The starting question for each group is: 'What do you think should be commented on in your text?' Note: we are not comparing and contrasting yet. Fill in your half of the table below. 

After you have done this, e group is given the second text to read. Read it in light of the first. This often results in finer points being made, and helps you see that a comparison is not necessarily more difficult than a single text commentary.

 Compare and contrast

Text 1 Text 2

- Short, simple sentences

- First persona narrator, autobiographical

- Abbreviations as if speaking; not particularly sophisticated 

- Positive feelings about past; memory; informal

-Proves a point through structure =communication very important

- Approaches themes in same manner, before, after and effects on today

- Pattern of three – was, was, was contrast with present?

- Narrator is talking to the reader, giving advice

- General period influenced present life

- Growth, continuous movement

- Accepts and praises education

- Style of education involves critical reflection

- Nature relationship student/headmaster

- Autobiographical; First person narrator

- Different points of view child/headmaster

- Tells a story and access to emotions; feels like present but past memory; access to thoughts; happened a long time ago

- Significant one moment

- Story unfinished in immediate

- Dialogue important

- Story-like register allows you to identify

- Sarcastic

- Dialogue informal because young child while narrative complex

- Questions point of learning Latin

- Memorization

Text 1
From An Autobiography
Lee Iacocca, former President of both the Ford Motor Company and the Chrysler Corporation. 

School was a very happy place for me. I was a diligent student. I was also a favorite of many teachers, who were always singling me out to clap the erasers or wash the blackboards or ring the school bells. If you ask me the names of my professors in college or graduate school, I'd have trouble coming up with more than three or four. But I still remember the teachers who molded me in elementary and high school. 

The most important thing I learned in school was how to communicate. Miss Raber, our ninth-grade teacher, had us turn in a theme paper of five hundred words every Monday morning. Week in and week out, we had to write that damn paper. By the end of the year, we had learned how to express ourselves in writing. 

In class she would quiz us on the Word Power Game from Reader's Digest. Without any advance warning she'd rip it out of the magazine and make us take the vocabulary test. It became a powerful habit with me - to this day I still look for the list of words in every issue of the Digest. 

After a few months of these quizzes, we knew a lot of words. But we still didn't know how to put them together. At that point, Miss Raber started us on extemporaneous speaking. I was good at it, and as a result I joined the debating team, which was sponsored by Mr. Virgil Parks, our Latin teacher. That's where I developed my speaking skills and learned how to think on my feet. 

At first I was scared to death. I had butterflies in my stomach - and to this day I still get a little nervous before giving a speech. But the experience of being on the debating team was crucial. You can have brilliant ideas, but if you can't get them across, your brains won't get you anywhere. When you're fourteen years old, nothing polishes your skills like arguing both sides of "Should capital punishment be abolished?" That was the hot issue in 1938 - and I must have spoken for each side of the debate at least twenty-five times.

Text 2
From My Early Life
Winston Churchill, British Prime Minister during WWII and winner of the Nobel prize for literature. 

When the last sound of my mother's departing wheels had died away, the Headmaster invited me to hand over any money I had in my possession. I produced my three half-crows, which were duly entered in a book. Then we quitted the Headmaster's parlour and the comfortable private side of the house, and entered the more black apartments reserved for the instruction and accommodation of the pupils. I was taken into a Form Room and told to sit at a desk. All the other boys were out of doors and I was alone with the Form Master. He produced a thin, grey-brown covered book filled with words in different types of print. 

'You have never done any Latin before, have you?' he said.

'No, sir.'

'This is Latin grammar.' He opened it at a well-thumbed page. 'You must learn this,' he said, pointing to a number of words in a frame of lines. 'I will come back in half an hour and see what you know.'

Behold me then on a gloomy evening, with an aching heart, seated in front of the First Declension: 

Mensa - a table
Mensa - O table
Mensam - a table
Mensae - of a table
Mensae - to or for a table
Mensa - by, with or from a table

What on earth did it mean? Where was the sense in it? It seemed absolute rigmarole to me. However, there was one think I could always do: I could learn by heart. And I thereupon proceeded, as far as my private sorrows would allow, to memorize the task which had been set me.

In due course the Master returned.

'Have you learnt it?' he asked.

'I think I can say it, sir,' I replied; and I baggled it off.

He seemed so satisfied with this that I was emboldened to ask a question.

'What does it mean, sir?'

'It means what it says. Mensa, a table. Mensa is a noun of the First Declension. There are five declensions. You have learned the singular of the First Declension.'

 'But,' I repeated, 'what does it mean?' 

'Mensa means a table,' he answered.

'Then why does mens also mean O table,' I enquired, 'and what does O table mean?'

Topic sentences 

You will now want to start organizing your ideas. Look for similarities in both columns of the table. Move the ideas around on a SmartBoard or circle similar ideas with different colors. Create topic sentences that allow you to comment on all of the ideas that you have clustered together. 

A sample list of topic sentences

  1. The use of tone and word choice creates a more immediate portrayal of events in Churchill's text, while Iacocca's is clear but slightly monotonous.
  2. While in the first text comments on a prolonged period in his life, in the second text the narrator recounts a specific moment in his childhood.
  3. In Texts 1 and 2 the students experience different styles of education, one involving critical reflection to learn, whereas the other emphasizes memorizing Latin without understanding.
  4. In Text 1 there are short sentences and the tone is monotone, like a far away memory, whereas in text b there are more descriptions and immediate images.

Write one paragraph

From your list of topic sentences, pick one to write an entire paragraph on. You can divide the class into groups, so that each group comments on one topic sentence. When every group is done, you will collectively have written a comparative commentary. 

Tip: Using Google Docs is an excellent way of writing comparative commentaries collectively as a class. Teachers can create a Google Doc online and share it with all of the students (you will need a list of student e-mail addresses). Assign each group one paragraph. Group member click on the link to the Doc in their inbox and start working on the commentary in real time, meaning that multiple students can edit the Doc at the same time, live!

Sample paragraph 1

While in the first text the narrator comments on a prolonged period in his life, in the second text the narrator recounts a specific moment in his childhood. Iacocca writes about his educational experiences over the years, and how these have helped him become what he is as an adult. He tells how "Miss Robers [...] had us turn in a theme paper of 500 words every Monday morning." The word 'every' shows a recurring routine that happens "week in and week out." On the other hand, Churchill narrates a specific event, which negatively affected his impression of school. He begins by writing "When the last sound of my mother's departing wheels had died away [...]" and ends with "such was my first introduction to the classics [...]". 

Sample paragraph 2

In Texts 1 and 2, the students experience different styles of education, one involving critical reflection to learn, whereas the other emphasizes memorizing Latin without understanding. In the first extract the narrator's educational growth is determined by mastering certain skills, such as debating, arguing and reflecting. His teachers have taught him how to communicate, and he recommends the same approach to the reader. As he claims, "That's where I developed my speaking skills and learned how to think on my feet." The second text, on the other hand, illustrates a different attitude towards education. Churchill is forced to memorize concepts without truly acquiring knowledge, and therefore appears more skeptical about the benefits of education, as he comments, "It seemed absolute rigmarole to me."