Compare and Contrasting - 7th/8th grade

Posted by Eugene:

This is my first blog!  I'm really excited to be doing this.  I teach 7th and 8th grade Spanish and technology classes in Maricopa, Arizona.

A few weeks ago my wife and I put together a lesson on how to compare and contrast two first-hand accounts of the same topic.  We read the two passages and started to talk about them.  I modeled for students how to fold an 8 1/2" x 11" sheet of construction paper into what is called a "hot dog" bend/fold.  

Hot Dog-fold

Tri-fold part 1

Tri-fold part 2

Most students could do this OK.  But, when I tried to demonstrate how to take it a step further, they fell apart! I wanted them to next do a "tri-fold" crease on the same paper.  

It seemed to separate the kinesthetic, auditory, and visual learners into factions of: "This is easy!" to "I - don't - get - IT!" and "How did you do that?"  

Actually,  it was fun to see which kids all of a sudden began to shine, when they usually don't for other things.  Some kids became teachers by showing others how to make the correct creases and folds.

Once this was done I showed them how to draw a Venn diagram on the top/bottom part of the hot dog fold.  When they opened it up - they had the "tri-fold" inside for: 1st essay compare/contrast - the middle for: similar - the 3rd for: compare/contrast, again.  If you're wondering what I'm talking about, I will supply a photo.

Compare/Similar/Contrast

Inside Tri-fold

Front/Title Venn fold

The real "Ah ha!" moment came when we went through what consisted of "apples vs. apples and oranges vs. oranges."  I finally explained that we needed to compare and contrast the same "category" of information, otherwise we wouldn't really be comparing and contrasting the right types of things. An example of what I'm talking about was that in the articles, two families were immigrating to the United States.  One family left their mother and one year old son behind until the father could get established with a good job and a place to live. The family was split up .  The other family moved as whole unit at the same time. One family moved to Kansas and the other one went to Florida.  the same category of information, but different set of circumstances. 

At that moment many kids started to say that it had never really been explained to them that way before. They all knew about Venn diagrams, but were just going through the motions to get the assignment done without really understanding what they were doing.  

What experiences have you had teaching compare and contrast? 

I would love to hear what kinds of things are happening in your classroom.

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