Compare/Contrast

For this essay, compare and contrast two texts we have read so far in this course with respect to some key element in both: theme, literary or argumentative style, representation of place or experience, or something of your own choosing. Try to focus on something that both interests you and seems to you inherently perplexing.

Possible Comparisons:

• New York Times articles on Stonewall – representations of rioters and social context
• Times Square Red, Times Square Blue and Death and Life of Great American Cities – sidewalks, contact, relationships
• Invisible Man and “The Day Lady Died” – time
• “The People on the Bus” and Death and Life – contact, personalities
• “The Day Lady Died” and/or “A Step Away from Them” and Death and Life and/or Invisible Man – navigating the city, sidewalks
• Invisible Man and “Meditations in an Emergency” – representations of alterity
• Invisible Man and Zami – coping mechanisms for dealing with racisim
• Invisible Man and “New York, 1936”
• Annie Hall as lens on Woody Allen controversy

Nuts and Bolts:

• The assigned length for this essay is 1750 to 2100 words (approximately five to six pages long), not including your bibliography page. Your essay must include a bibliography.
• As with all papers for this class, your paper should be written using MLA formatting. Refer to the Purdue OWL website or my MLA Mini-guide if you have any questions.
• Here is the rubric by which you will be graded.
• Here are the handouts you received on how to write comparative analysis and the basics of integrating quotations into your essay. And here is the revision checklist we developed in class.
• The Draft Workshop will take place on Friday, April 4^th. Papers should be circulated by midnight on Wednesday, April 2^nd.
• The final draft is due on Friday, April 11^th by the beginning of class. Please submit it to turnitin.com as a word document, if possible.

What to do in a compare/contrast. . . This kind of paper tends to rely heavily on “close reading,” often with two close readings placed side by side and evaluated. Typically, in comparison/contrast studies, you will want to argue that there is a striking similarity between two texts that seem on the surface very different; or you want to show some startling contrast or difference between two texts that seem, on the surface, very similar. A third strategy would be to look at one work through the lens of the other.  In this case, you will really focus on an analysis of one text but will use terms, ideas, structures, or the like from a second text as a “lens” to look, in a new way, at the first text. In all cases, the goal of this kind of paper is not only a greater understanding of the two texts (though this is indeed one goal), but also a greater understanding of the ways we approach and understand the texts themselves. For example, comparing a work of fiction to a work of journalism might reveal that these two categories aren’t so different as one might think, with regard to how both come to terms with human propensities and desires.  Likewise, comparing a contemporary piece with an older one might suggest that there are many questions that have yet to be satisfactorily answered—certain issues that speak to us across and throughout the ages.