Point-by Point Method, Comparison/Contrast Essay
Step-by-Step
Teacher Overview
Skill Focus
Remember
Understand
Close Reading
Levels of Thinking
Apply
Analyze
Grammar
Reading Strategies
Inference
Literary Elements
Diction
Imagery
Tone
Evaluate
Create
Composition
Types (modes)
Expository
comparison/contrast
Structural Elements
Introduction
thesis
Body
incorporation of quotes
topic sentence
use of commentary
use of evidence
Conclusion
Organization
Patterns (spatial, order of
importance, chronological,
etc.)
Transitions
Style/Voice
Imitation of Stylistic Models
Materials and Resources
• Selected comparison/contrast essay prompt from the Diagnostics on the Laying the
Foundation® website (www.ltftraining.org)
• Lesson on the block method of organizing a comparison/contrast essay
Lesson Introduction
This lesson guides students through a model of how to structure a comparison/contrast essay
using the point-by-point method of organization. The lesson uses a seventh grade diagnostic
activity over the poems “Mother to Son” and “Fear.” After working through this lesson or the
block organizational lesson, have students work through one of the other diagnostic activities to
write their own essays.
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Point-by-Point Method, Comparison/Contrast Essay
Step-by-Step
Description of the Process
Read the following directions carefully before you examine the sample essay provided.
A comparison/contrast essay written using the point-by-point method of organization is
structured like this:
Introduction
Paragraph on 1st element
in passage 1
in passage 2
Paragraph on 2nd element
in passage 1
in passage 2
(One more paragraph for each additional element)
Conclusion
Introduction
There are many ways to structure an introduction. This is one of the structures that works well
for various types of essays:
1. Make a general statement about life
2. Become more specific
3. Become even more specific
4. End with thesis statement
Using this organizational method, write a four-sentence introductory paragraph as follows:
Sentence 1: Write a general statement about life—a thematic statement that fits the
prompt.
Sentence 2: Become more specific, providing examples related to the general statement.
Sentence 3: Become even more specific, moving toward your thesis.
Sentence 4: State the thesis of your essay, naming the authors and titles of the two
passages or poems and describing their differences.
Body Paragraph 1
Sentence 1: Write a topic sentence, restating the authors’ names or the titles of the passages,
naming the element you will discuss in this paragraph, and making an assertion about the
use of that element in each passage or poem.
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Point-by-Point Method, Comparison/Contrast Essay
Step-by-Step
Sentences 2-4: Write sentences in which you point out examples (evidence) of the element from
the first poem or passage. These sentences will also explain how the evidence proves your
assertion. (Your prompt will tell you what you are explaining; sometimes you will have to
comment on the connection of the evidence to the attitude of the author or to the effect on the
reader.) You may write one sentence of evidence and one (or more) of commentary, or you
may combine evidence and commentary within the sentences.
Sentences 5-6 (or 7): Follow the same directions as above for the second poem or passage.
Body Paragraph 2
Sentence 1: Write a transition sentence that works as a topic sentence and moves into a
discussion of the second element.
Sentences 2-4: Give examples (evidence) of the second element from the first poem or
passage. Either include commentary with your evidence in the same sentences or write
separate sentences of commentary.
Sentences 5-6 (or 7): Follow the same directions as above for the second poem or passage.
Note: You will need to write an additional body paragraph for each additional element you are
discussing.
Conclusion
There are many ways to structure a conclusion. The conclusion can be seen as the introduction
upside down. In this paragraph, you start with a restatement of the thesis (the last sentence of the
introduction) but worded differently. Then you become more specific, referring to the two texts
you are comparing. Finally, you end the essay with a thought-provoking idea.
1. Restate the thesis
2. Become more specific
3-4. Finish it off
Sentence 1: Restate the thesis.
Sentences 2-3 or 4: Become more specific. Then decide whether you need another sentence in
order to make the essay “feel finished” and to add a thought-provoking idea.
Example of the Process
Below is a sample comparison/contrast essay prompt, followed by a model of how an essay
might be developed using the block method described above.
Read carefully “Mother to Son” by Langston Hughes and “Fear” by Gabriela Mistral. Both
poems are about a parent’s vision of a child’s future. The author of “Mother to Son” reveals a
mother’s desire to encourage her son’s independence, while “Fear” reveals the speaker’s desire
to keep his/her daughter close. In a well-written essay, compare and contrast the way the two
poets use diction and imagery to reveal the parents’ hopes and dreams for their children.
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Point-by-Point Method, Comparison/Contrast Essay
Step-by-Step
Mother to Son
Fear
Well, son, I’ll tell you:
Life for me ain’t been no crystal stair,
It’s had tacks in it,
And splinters,
5 And boards torn up,
And places with no carpet on the floor—
Bare.
But all the time
I’se been a-climbin’ on
10 And reachin’ landin’s
And turnin’ corners,
And sometimes goin’ in the dark
Where there ain’t been no light.
So boy, don’t you turn back.
15 Don’t you set down on the steps
’Cause you finds it’s kinder hard
Don’t you fall now—
For I’se still climbin’,
And life for me ain’t been no crystal stair.
5
I don’t want them to turn
my little girl into a swallow.
She would fly far away into the sky
and never fly again to my straw bed,
or she would nest in the eaves
where I could not comb her hair.
I don’t want them to turn
my little girl into a swallow.
I don’t want them to make
10 my little girl a princess.
In tiny golden slippers
how could she play on the meadow?
And when night came, no longer
would she sleep at my side.
15 I don’t want them to make
my little girl a princess.
And even less do I want them
one day to make her queen.
They would put her on a throne
20 where I could not go to see her.
And when nighttime came
I could never rock her . . .
I don’t want them to make
my little girl a queen.
Complete the chart below with examples from the two poems.
Poem
“Mother to Son”
Speaker’s Attitude
encourages her son’s
independence
“Fear”
wants to keep his/her
daughter close
Diction
Imagery
“Mother to Son” from THE COLLECTED POETRY OF LANGSTON HUGHES by Langston Hughes. Copyright © 1994 by The Estate
of Langston Hughes. Reprinted with permission of Harold Ober Associates, Inc.
“Fear” from Selected Poems of Gabriela Mistral by Gabriela Mistral, translated and edited by Doris Dana. Copyright © 1961, 1964,
1970, 1971 by Doris Dana. Reprinted with permission of Writers House, LLC.
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Block Method, Comparison/Contrast Essay
Step-by-Step
Example of the Process (Using “Mother to Son” and “Fear”)
In the example that follows, the writer has used the point-by-point method of organization to respond to
the essay prompt that preceded the two poems. In this example, body paragraph 1 analyzes the diction in
“Fear” and in “Mother to Son,” and body paragraph 2 analyzes the imagery in “Fear” and in “Mother to
Son.”
Introduction
Sentence 1: Write a general
statement about life—a thematic
statement that fits the prompt.
Sentence 2: Become more specific,
providing examples related to the
general statement.
Sentence 3: Become even more
specific, moving toward your thesis.
Sentence 4: State the thesis of your
essay.
Body Paragraph 1
Sentence 1: Write a topic sentence,
restating the authors’ names or the
titles of the passages, naming the
element you will discuss in this
paragraph, and making an assertion
about the use of that element in each
passage or poem.
Sentences 2-4: Write sentences in
which you point out examples
(evidence) of the element from the
first poem or passage. These
sentences will also explain how the
evidence proves your assertion.
(Your prompt will tell you what you
are explaining; sometimes you will
have to comment on the connection
of the evidence to the attitude of the
author or to the effect on the reader.)
You may write one sentence of
evidence and one (or more) of
commentary, or you may combine
evidence and commentary within the
sentences.
Sentences 5-6 (or 7): Follow the
same directions as above for the
second poem or passage.
While all parents have high hopes for their children, those
hopes differ in form. For some, these expectations are for
wealth or career success; for others, the dream is for domestic
happiness or spiritual fulfillment. But, regardless of the
parent’s vision of the child’s future, she often must struggle
with the need to let the child go versus the longing to keep the
child close. In Langston Hughes’s “Mother to Son,” a mother
encourages her son to be strong and seek independence, while
the narrator of Gabriela Mistral’s “Fear” wants to protect her
daughter and keep her close to home.
Both “Fear” and “Mother to Son” include diction that
reveals a loving yet anxious attitude toward a child. The parent
in “Fear” reveals a loving anxiety when she repeats the
negative adverbs “never” and “not” as she explains what she
could not do if her daughter left. She does not want her
daughter to become “a swallow,” “princess,” or “queen,” all
positive words. But taking on these roles would cause the child
to leave the family, which is not something the mother wants.
She wants the child to stay “a little girl.” The speaker in “Mother
to Son,” on the other hand, shows her love through harsher speech,
as she pushes her son to be tough and strong. His life, like hers, will
include “tacks” and “splinters,” and the floor will be “bare.”
Hughes, like Mistral, repeats the contraction “don’t,” but, instead of
having the speaker say, “I don’t want . . .,” he has his speaker use
the word as the beginning of a stern command.
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Point-by-Point Method, Comparison/Contrast Essay
Step-by-Step
Body Paragraph 2
Sentence 1: Write a transition
sentence that works as a topic
sentence and moves into a
discussion of the second element.
Sentences 2-4: Give examples
(evidence) of the second element
from the first poem or passage.
Either include commentary with
your evidence in the same sentences
or write separate sentences of
commentary.
Sentences 5-6 (or 7): Follow the
same directions as above for the
second passage or poem.
Conclusion
Sentence 1: Restate the thesis.
Sentences 2-3 or 4: Become more
specific. Then decide whether you
need another sentence in order to
make the essay “feel finished” and
to add a thought-provoking idea.
Imagery also reveals the different attitudes of the speakers
in both poems. Mistral’s depiction of the little girl hurrying to
the parent’s “straw bed” where the parent can lovingly “rock
her” creates a secure, cozy image of a loving hoe. And the
picture the reader sees of the girl “play[ing] on the meadow” is
a happy one. These images emphasize the protective desires of
a parent who is happy having “a little girl.” The feelings of
Hughes’s speaker are also loving, but her protective instincts
are expressed in a far different way. Though life for her “ain’t
been no crystal stair,” but rather a place “where there ain’t
been no light,” she harangues her son not to “set down on the
steps.” These images are not ones of comfort but of the
hardship that she knows her son will face. Unlike the speaker in
“Fear,” this other does not want her son to cling to her but
instead wants him to become as independent and strong as he
is.
Through diction and imagery, Hughes and Mistral reveal
two different parental attitudes toward a child’s future. Though
both speakers have dreams for their children, those dreams are
not the same. Hughes’s images and diction, though largely
negative, are spoken by a loving mother determined to prepare
her child for a hard life without her. Mistral, on the other hand,
uses mostly positive diction, but her equally loving speaker
apparently dreams the impossible dream of keeping her
daughter a child forever.
Putting the Model into Practice
Use this model to write the comparison/contrast essay your teacher will assign.
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Copyright © 2010 Laying the Foundation , Inc., Dallas, TX. All rights reserved. Visit: www.layingthefoundation.org