Lesson Plan

Similarities and Differences

Use this lesson with your students to practice comparing and contrasting the key details in two texts on the same topic. It can be a stand-alone lesson or a pre-lesson for the *What's Similar? What's Different?* lesson.
This lesson can be used as a pre-lesson for the What’s Similar? What’s Different? lesson plan.
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This lesson can be used as a pre-lesson for the What’s Similar? What’s Different? lesson plan.

Objectives

Academic

Students will be able to use two texts to compare and contrast important points on the same topic.

Language

Students will be able to compare and contrast two texts with complete sentences using sentence frames.

Introduction

(2 minutes)
Comparing and Contrasting with Sentence FramesComparing and Contrasting: Feeding our PetsGraphic Organizer Template: Frayer ModelWrite Student-Facing Language Objectives ReferenceTeach Background Knowledge TemplateGlossary: Similarities and Differences.Vocabulary Cards: Similarities and Differences
  • Explain that today’s lesson will be about comparing and contrasting with complete sentences using sentence frames.
  • Access prior knowledge about comparing and contrasting by displaying an image of a car and an airplane.
  • Draw a T-chart on the board with columns labeled "Compare" and "Contrast." Display sentence strips with information about the two images and model sorting an example onto the correct side of the T-chart.
  • Have a student read aloud each sentence strip and allow the rest of the class to discuss if that sentence shows comparing or contrasting.