Using Organizers to Compare and Contrast
A pretty standard higher-order-thinking goal is to prepare students to compare and contrast two things - people, places, events, etc. This presents the two-fold task of teaching the content and making sure that students have the conceptual skills to compare two things.
In order to make comparisons, students need to be able to abstract - to boil a specific person, for example, into general characteristics of people. Individual facts mean little, while concepts are very important.
As students learn to generalize and to make comparisons, it helps to have an organizer to scaffold the process. Some students will benefit more from a visually oriented organizer - like the well known venn diagram. Other students will prefer a more direct and linear approach - a table with a series of direct comparisons.
Venn Diagrams - Visual Comparisons
A screenshot of the sample Venn Diagram handout.
We all know what a venn diagram is. You take a couple of circles, make them overlap, fill in the three parts, and 'Bam!' You've got yourself an instant compare and contrast.
The power of the venn diagram is in the conceptualization. By creating a venn diagram correctly, students can actually see what it means to compare and contrast. They can visualize, and therefore understand conceptually, how two sets of characteristics are similar or different.
Here's a sample handout to use for general venn diagrams: an Open Office (odt) version and an MS Office (doc) version.
Keep It Simple and Linear With a Text Chart
While some students thrive on visuals like venn diagrams, other students will be lost. If a student doesn't have the basic skills to create categories and concept in his or her head, then the venn diagram isn't going to work.
Screenshot of the linear, textual chart for comparisons.
The venn diagram relies on a student being able to mentally create a category, make a comparison, and at the end record the data on the chart. What happens if the student can't make those categories to begin with?
For struggling students, and those that don't like visuals, a simple textual chart may be a superior option. With this type of chart, the two items to be compared are laid side by side. A third column is left open for questions.
In the "question" column, the student would list questions or attributes to compare the two items. By answering the question for each item, a direct comparison is automatically made.
For example, let's say the student is asked to compare and contrast the Whiskey Rebellion and Shays' Rebellion. Not knowing where to start, the student asks the teacher for some direction. The teacher responds, "What social group rebelled in each case?"
This question is written in that "question" column, and the answer is placed in the other two columns. After the student answers the questions, he or she should realize that poor, small farmers were participants in both rebellions.
Here's a sample handout you can use for this text chart: an Open Office odt version and an MS Office doc version.
Use These Organizers to Lead Into Writing
Whichever organizer you use, it should be a tool to help students write about comparisons.
In each of the organizers, an area is left at the bottom with blank lines. This is only space for about a paragraph - and it is intended to give students room to briefly summarize the comparison that was made in the chart.
It is important to develop this further, though, and have the students utilize this type of chart as the foundation of a complete essay. Filling in a chart is in itself not necessarily higher order thinking - using it to write an organized and thought out essay certainly is.
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