Comparing texts · Grade 9
Comparing texts means reading two texts on the same subject and explaining how they are alike and how they are different: what the writers say, how they feel and the methods they use to get their ideas across.
Key facts
- Start with what the texts are about and what each writer thinks: are their views the same, or opposite?
- Compare the tone and attitude: one writer may be enthusiastic, another critical, worried or neutral. The words they choose show it.
- Compare the purpose: is each text written to inform, to persuade, to describe, to complain or to share an experience?
- Compare the methods: rhetorical questions, statistics, personal anecdotes, quotations, imagery and a list of three. Say what effect each one has.
- Use comparing words: for similarities similarly, likewise, both; for differences however, whereas, in contrast, unlike. Support each point with a short quotation from each text.