Update: What makes a good comparative analytical essay?

Over the course of the year, we going to write several analytical essays. Here's the process we're using:
Read & annotate the prompt.
Read the text (or texts) with the prompt in mind.
When possible, discuss the relationship between the text (or texts) and prompt.
Plan your written response to the prompt.
Use the plan, the annotated text, the annotated prompt, and (when possible) model responses to write the response.

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Today we focused on the plan.

Because we're writing a shuttle comparison our plan has to be a bit more complex. So in our notes we had to do something like this:

Prompt: In a well-organized, well-developed essay compare and contrast the ways the two writers use rhetorical strategies to convey their evolving responses to the complex role ethnocentrism and cultural hegemony play in their lives.

What is James Baldwin's evolving response to the role of ethnocentrism and cultural hegemony in his life?	What is Jamaica Kincaid's evolving response to ethnocentrism and cultural hegemony in her life?
What rhetorical strategies does Baldwin use to convey his response?	What rhetorical strategies does Kincaid use to convey her response?

 
Then, we had to ask ourselves: what important, significant, meaningful, nuanced, and subtle similarities and differences do we notice? What are the similarities and differences in the role and responses? What at are the similarities and differences in the strategies?

Now, we have notes on all the major parts of the prompt. But we don't yet have a plan. For the plan we'll need two things: a thesis that fully addresses the prompt and an organizational structure for the body of the essay.

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The Thesis:
Your thesis (which may need to be more than one sentence) will need to indicate how the body of your essay will compare and contrast both the two writers' evolving responses to the role of ethnocentric oppression (or oppressive cultural hegemony, etc.) and the strategies the writers use to convey those responses.

Examples:
Here are some examples of thesis statements that compare and contrast how authors use rhetorical strategies to convey a message. I wrote one of them and one of you wrote the other.

Although both passages convey ideas about problems in education, James Cook's "I Wanna Bore Ya" uses outdated slang to satirize his own failures as a teacher, whereas Kurt Lichtenwald's essay "Are You Kidding Me?" relies upon incendiary taboo diction to convey an aggressive critique of widespread incompetence.

Martin Luther King Jr. and Sir Thomas Browne both use long sentences consisting of lists in order to form their argument. King makes long lists to force the reader to acknowledge the injustices he and his people have faced for too long. Browne inserts a list into his opening paragraph to establish from the beginning his purpose for writing about the futility of all living things in the face of time.

Here is an example of a student comparing strategies and responses to impending death taken from a student's response to a prompt the 2008 AP English literature exam:

Both poems by Keats and Longfellow reflect on unfulfilled reams and the imminence of death, yet the conclusions are somewhat different. Longfellow mourns his inaction and seems to view the past as comfortable compared to an uncertain future. On the other hand, Keats worries that he will not be able to accomplish all that he wants to, but as he recognized the enormity and possibilities of the world, and realizes that his mortal goals are meaningless. Longfellow's ultimate tone about death is fearful and grim, but Keats' tone is more appreciative of the wonder of life and therefore more hopeful.

The rest of this essay, which is a good example of the shuttle comparison strategy, can be found here.

Try creating your own thesis in response to the prompt: In a well-organized, well-developed essay compare and contrast the ways the two writers use rhetorical strategies to convey their evolving responses to the complex role ethnocentrism and cultural hegemony play in their lives. 

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The Plan:

Take a look at the notes you've taken on Baldwin and Kincaid's evolving responses and the strategies they use to convey the responses. 

Does it make more sense to organize your essay strategy-by-strategy or essay-section-by-essay-section? If you choose strategy-by-strategy the difficult thing is making sure you convey to the reader a sense of the essay as a whole. If you choose section-by-section the difficult things are deciding how to break the texts down into sections and making sure you discuss responses and strategies  as you move from beginning to end.

Examples of ways of organizing:

This example essay from the 2008 AP English Literature exam (which compares two poems) takes the section-by-section approach. The example essay we read earlier in the week that analyzes Kincaid's attitude toward England also takes the section-by-section approach. The second example essay (starting on page 7) at this link uses the strategy-by-strategy approach but not entirely convincingly.

Once you have your plan you're ready to write your draft. Make sure every body paragraph is focused on comparing how Baldwin and Kincaid convey their evolving responses to ethnic and cultural oppression using rhetorical strategies.

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One last thing:

Don't forget to try writing a "big idea" opening like the one in essay about "On Seeing England..." that we read earlier in the week. This kind of opening starts with a big idea related to your thesis, then has a transitional sentence, the hits the reader with the thesis. Try it out. 

We'll work on all of this with self-assessment and peer feedback on Tuesday (10/13). The final draft will be due at pumpkin time midnight [or rather 11:59:59 pm] Friday 10/17.