SIck of Comparing and Contrasting?

            I don’t know about you, but I used to groan (an inner, quiet groan) with agony whenever a teacher assigned a “compare and contrast” essay.  To me, this meant busywork—taking two things (poets, movies, cars, foods, whatever) and then tediously describing how they are alike, and how they are different. As if any fool can’t see both.

            Painstakingly I would describe the similarities.  Then, equally painstakingly, I would outline the differences.  No detail left behind.  Ugh.

            And for years I never understood why we had to point out the obvious.  And then I grew up a bit.  One day I realized this skill is not just handy when choosing one author over another, or when writing an opinion piece about why one politician’s plan is better than another’s.  It’s a life skill.  You use it with every decision you make.

            In short, it’s brain training.  We compare and contrast every day—which bread to buy, which friends to pick, which interests to pursue, which activities to schedule.  You cannot make an informed decision without knowing the pros and cons.  Being able to analyze similar and different choices, helps you make wiser decisions.

This exercise also helps us connect ideas together, read with more comprehension, and analyze life’s perplexities.  It helps us organize our thoughts as we listen and speak, it helps us classify and sort, it expands our knowledge, and it enriches our vocabulary.

But the skill of being able to compare and contrast is not just for reading or decision-making.  It’s essential for writing.  Much of what we tell our readers is new to them— sometimes this is the whole reason they’re reading.  People like fresh ideas.  They like to learn new things, “see” new places and cultures, and encounter characters and concepts they’ve never encountered before. Yet, without the ability to draw analogies, or to tell your readers how this is somewhat like something they already know, you’re writing about a situation they can never grasp. You can be writing about a made-up planet, but if you want them to breathe the hot mist rising from the cracks in its crust, you need to draw parallels to the humidity, and maybe the volcanic lava they know from their own planet.

If you’re in a school setting, whether you’re a teacher or a student, the way to inject greater value into the assignment is not just to identify likenesses and differences, but then to explain why it matters.  Because it always does.  And students need to know that.