Welcome to The Lost Tools of Writing: Comparison Essay. This
semester-long program provides a way for students to gain more practice
in foundational thinking skills plus practice in writing a different
kind of essay. Through LTW: Comparison Essays, students will
solidify the foundations laid in LTW I, develop deeper thinking skills,
master an additional form of essay-writing, and delve more deeply into
analogical thinking with different kinds of metaphor-writing. The skills
students gain through LTW: Comparison Essay extend beyond
academics to life in the world, cultivating more refined and careful
thinking about people, things, ideas, and their own decisions.
LTW: Comparison Essays fulfills the purpose of understanding
people, things, or ideas more deeply, or assessing whether one is
better or in some way more desirable than another. The bigger purpose of
these thinking and writing skills is to grow in wisdom and prudence by
practicing making finer distinctions and better decisions. Students can
learn and practice principles and habits of decision-making for their
own lives.
Deeper Thinking
The goal of using the common topics is not to think about the topics,
but to think with them. Just as repeated practice allows a player to
throw a football without thinking about how to grip it or a musician to
play a piece of music without thinking of where to put her fingers,
repetition allows us to internalize thinking skills so that we can put
our focus where it needs to be: on the people and things in our
decisions. Internalizing the means of thinking frees us to think about
about our decisions and the people, places, and things that are in
them—to think with the tools and not about them.
A Different Kind of Writing
By writing comparison essays after persuasive essays, students will
be able to compare the two kinds of writing to each other. They will
find that all writing requires coming up with something to say
(invention), organizing the material (arrangement), and expressing ideas
in a fitting way (elocution). Further, they will see that the common
topics and elocution tools they learned in Level I have prepared them to
complete any kind of writing. As long as they are given an outline
(those forms that come to us by tradition and make each kind of writing
what it is) they can execute any kind of writing.
The Overall Picture of a Comparison Outline
When we compare two items we can do so for different reasons.
Sometimes we want to assess which one is better than the others. But
sometimes, as is often the case with studies in history and literature
(and friendships), we simply desire to gain a deeper understanding of
both people. Comparison essays can help us gain understanding.
Sometimes we compare because we do need to choose one thing over the
other. We can only attend one college, play a limited time in a recital,
and eat one meal for lunch. Comparing can help us find the similarities
and differences we need to know in order to decide which choice is
best. Also, deciding repeatedly about our writing hones our ability to
make wise decisions when they matter in our lives. Comparison essays
cultivate that skill.
Outlines
Three outlines are presented in this book of comparison essays. The
first is simple; then complexity builds with each successive outline.
The third outline is repeated in Essay Four to allow for more practice
with the most difficult form. You will find the block outline used when
comparing is for the purpose of further understanding. The
point-by-point outline is used when we make an assessment about which
item is better.
Elocution
Elocution begins with a review of Level I’s metaphor lesson.
Succeeding lessons build on that foundation, leading the students to
create the more complex expanded metaphor, leading them into more and
more analogical thinking.
All the skills that students learned in every canon of Level I can be
applied in these comparison essays since Level I skills are universal
thinking, organizing, and writing skills. Sometimes the review will be
more obvious and sometimes less so. But in LTW: Comparison Essay you
will be led through a way to expand on Level I skills through a
different kind of writing with many lessons and benefits of its own.
