How to Write Compare & Contrast Essays

Video Transcript

"Hi I'm Laura from youngwritersworkshops.com and I want to talk about how to write a compare and contrast essay. To compare and contrast the students need to make a list of, to sort of diagram the topic and one good way to do this is with a Venn diagram. You can begin by teaching them how to take two topics, place them in the circle and then the Venn diagram has an area where the two things in common overlap so this is a good way to use some kind of organizer to put ideas down on paper and maybe look at them graphically and then be able to understand the topic and the material a little bit more clearly. So the first step in the process is to organize the information in some way possibly graphically, to come up with which things are similar and which are different. The next process is to begin to decide which of these traits are going to be the focus of the writing and lead the students in writing a first draft where they will have a first paragraph, second paragraph, third paragraph and where they introduce the ideas and then describe them and then sum them up in conclusion, use a peer review process where they can sharpen their ideas a little bit possibly making the arguments a little bit stronger and then coming up with a final draft so those are some ideas about how to write a compare and a contrast essay."