PROJECT: COMPARATIVE ESSAY OBJECTIVES
Locate details that support a theme and analyze how those details shape the theme.
Compare/contrast theme in two poems.
Use language that is appropriate for the task, purpose, and audience.
Project: Comparative Essay
The process of comparing and contrasting includes examining two or more texts for their similarities and differences. Such comparisons often focus on specific literary elements. For example, one might compare and contrast the symbolic way living spaces are used in Hughes’ “Theme for English B” and Brooks’ “The Bean Eaters.” Or we might look at the way the device of repetition is used in Brooks’ “The Bean Eaters” and Lorde’s “Hanging Fire.”

We can also compare and contrast something more abstract, such as the theme of race in Hughes’ “Theme for English B,” and Brooks’ “The Bean Eaters.”

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In your essay, you might compare and contrast theme, figurative language, or a poem's use of rhyme.

SHOW TRANSCRIPT
For this assignment, you will write a compare and contrast essay about two of the following poems:

Langston Hughes’ “Theme for English B”
Click here to read “Theme for English B.”

Gwendolyn Brooks’ “The Bean Eaters”
Click here to read “The Bean Eaters."

Audre Lorde’s “Hanging Fire”
Click here to read “Hanging Fire.”

Anne Sexton’s “Young”
Click here to read “Young.”