CCRA.R.9: Comparing Texts on the Same Theme or Topic

Overview

Lesson Procedure

55-60 minutes of class time across 5 phases.

1. Warm-Up5 minutes
2. Direct Instruction15-20 minutes
3. Guided Practice15 minutes
4. Independent Practice15 minutes
5. Closure5 minutes

1. Warm-Up5 minutes

   Warm-Up Prompt

   "Imagine two pieces of writing about the same thunderstorm: a weather report and a poem. Write one thing the report would tell you that the poem probably would not, and one thing the poem would give you that the report would not."

   Take four answers and sort them into two columns on the board: Information (rainfall totals, times, wind speed) and Experience (what the storm felt like, what it meant to someone). Name the two purposes of the lesson: reading texts together to learn more about a topic, and reading them together to see how differently writers can handle it.

2. Direct Instruction15-20 minutes

   Terms for the whole period.

   • Topic: what a text is about, in a word or phrase (ants, a flood). Theme: what a literary text suggests about that topic, in a sentence.
   • Building knowledge: combining facts and ideas from several texts into one fuller picture, and noticing where they agree and disagree.
   • Approach: how an author handles the topic. Look at form (poem, report, journal), purpose (to inform, to amuse, to persuade), point of view, tone, structure and the kind of evidence used.
   • Synthesis: a single understanding built from several sources, with any conflicts between them noted or resolved.

   Progression of CCRA.R.9 in grades 6-12

   Grade-level standard	Band and text type	What this band adds
   RL.6.9	Grade 6, literature	Compare texts in different forms or genres, such as a story and a poem, on similar themes and topics
   RL.7.9	Grade 7, literature	Compare a fictional portrayal of a time, place or character with a historical account of it
   RL.8.9	Grade 8, literature	Analyze how a modern work of fiction draws on myths, traditional stories or religious works and makes them new
   RL.9-10.9	Grades 9-10, literature	Analyze how an author draws on and transforms source material in a specific work
   RL.11-12.9	Grades 11-12, literature	Compare how foundational American works from the same period treat similar themes or topics
   RI.6.9	Grade 6, informational text	Compare one author's presentation of events with another's, such as a memoir and a biography
   RI.7.9	Grade 7, informational text	Analyze how authors on the same topic emphasize different evidence or interpret facts differently
   RI.8.9	Grade 8, informational text	Analyze texts that conflict and identify where they disagree on fact or interpretation
   RI.9-10.9	Grades 9-10, informational text	Analyze seminal U.S. documents and how they address related themes and concepts
   RI.11-12.9	Grades 11-12, informational text	Analyze foundational U.S. documents for their themes, purposes and rhetorical features
   RH.6-8.9	Grades 6-8, history/social studies	Analyze the relationship between a primary and a secondary source on the same topic
   RH.9-10.9	Grades 9-10, history/social studies	Compare treatments of one topic in several primary and secondary sources
   RH.11-12.9	Grades 11-12, history/social studies	Integrate diverse sources into one coherent understanding, noting discrepancies
   RST.6-8.9	Grades 6-8, science and technical	Compare what experiments, simulations or media show with what a text on the topic says
   RST.9-10.9	Grades 9-10, science and technical	Compare a text's findings with other sources, noting where they support or contradict earlier accounts
   RST.11-12.9	Grades 11-12, science and technical	Synthesize several sources into a coherent understanding, resolving conflicts when possible

   Model texts. On December 30, 1816, the poet Leigh Hunt and the younger John Keats, then 21, each wrote a sonnet on the same subject: the grasshopper and the cricket. Keats's poem appeared in his first book, Poems (1817). Hunt's first appeared in a newspaper, The Examiner, in 1817; the text below follows his 1849 collected poems, which print line 4 with no end punctuation. A sonnet has 14 lines, and many sonnets "turn," or shift direction, after line 8: the first eight lines are the octave and the last six the sestet. Read both poems aloud twice.

   1The poetry of earth is never dead:
   When all the birds are faint with the hot sun,
   And hide in cooling trees, a voice will run
   From hedge to hedge about the new-mown mead;
   5That is the Grasshopper's--he takes the lead
   In summer luxury,--he has never done
   With his delights; for when tired out with fun
   He rests at ease beneath some pleasant weed.
   The poetry of earth is ceasing never:
   10On a lone winter evening, when the frost
   Has wrought a silence, from the stove there shrills
   The Cricket's song, in warmth increasing ever,
   And seems to one in drowsiness half lost,
   The Grasshopper's among some grassy hills.

   1Green little vaulter in the sunny grass,
   Catching your heart up at the feel of June,
   Sole voice that 's heard amidst the lazy noon,
   When even the bees lag at the summoning brass
   5And you, warm little housekeeper, who class
   With those who think the candles come too soon,
   Loving the fire, and with your tricksome tune
   Nick the glad silent moments as they pass;

   Oh sweet and tiny cousins, that belong,
   10One to the fields, the other to the hearth,
   Both have your sunshine; both, though small, are strong
   At your clear hearts; and both seem given to earth
   To ring in thoughtful ears this natural song—
   In doors and out, summer and winter, Mirth.

   • Same topic

     What topic do the two sonnets share, and how do both poets divide it?

     Result: Both are about the grasshopper and the cricket, and both tie each insect to a season and a place. Keats places the grasshopper in summer "From hedge to hedge about the new-mown mead" (line 4) and the cricket by "the stove" on "a lone winter evening" (lines 10-11). Hunt puts the grasshopper "in the sunny grass" (line 1) and gives the cricket "the hearth" (line 10). Naming the shared topic is the first step; it says nothing yet about how the poems differ.

   • Comparing approaches: point of view

     Who speaks, and to whom, in each poem?

     Result: Keats describes the insects from outside, in the third person: "That is the Grasshopper's--he takes the lead" (line 5). Hunt speaks to them directly, as "you": "Green little vaulter in the sunny grass" (line 1) and "And you, warm little housekeeper" (line 5). Speaking to someone or something that cannot answer is called an apostrophe. Hunt's choice makes his poem feel like a fond greeting; Keats's makes his feel like an observation.

   • Comparing approaches: structure

     Where does each poem place its two insects across the 14 lines?

     Result: Keats gives the octave (lines 1-8) to the grasshopper and the sestet (lines 9-14) to the cricket, so the turn at line 9 is also the turn from summer to winter. Hunt fits both insects into his octave, the grasshopper in lines 1-4 and the cricket in lines 5-8, and uses the whole sestet to speak to them together: "Oh sweet and tiny cousins" (line 9). The same 14-line form is organized for two different purposes.

   • Building knowledge across texts

     What does each poem tell a reader about the cricket that the other does not?

     Result: Keats gives its sound and when it is heard: it "shrills" from the stove when "the frost / Has wrought a silence" (lines 10-11), and its song grows "in warmth increasing ever" (line 12). Hunt adds its habits as a "housekeeper": it is "Loving the fire" and belongs to those "who think the candles come too soon" (lines 6-7). Read together, the poems give a fuller picture of a winter indoor insect than either does alone.

   Close by asking students which poem they would choose to show a younger student what a cricket is like, and which to show what the cricket means to the poet. There is no single right answer; the point is that the choice depends on the purpose.

3. Guided Practice15 minutes

   Two writers watch ants. Mark Twain wrote A Tramp Abroad (1880) about a walking tour of Germany and Switzerland; in this passage he rests in a forest and watches ants. Some words and sentences are left out and marked [...], including the part where two ants fight over the leg. Sir John Lubbock (1834-1913) was an English naturalist who kept ant nests for many years and tested their behavior; the second passage comes from his essay "The Intelligence of Ants," as reprinted in The Junior Classics (1912), a collection for young readers. Both texts print dashes as a double hyphen.

   1Now and then, while we rested, we watched the laborious ant at his work. I found nothing new in him--certainly nothing to change my opinion of him. It seems to me that in the matter of intellect the ant must be a strangely overrated bird. During many summers, now, I have watched him, when I ought to have been in better business, and I have not yet come across a living ant that seemed to have any more sense than a dead one. [...] I admit his industry, of course; he is the hardest-working creature in the world--when anybody is looking--but his leather-headedness is the point I make against him. He goes out foraging, he makes a capture, and then what does he do? Go home? No--he goes anywhere but home. He doesn't know where home is. His home may be only three feet away--no matter, he can't find it. He makes his capture, as I have said; it is generally something which can be of no sort of use to himself or anybody else; it is usually seven times bigger than it ought to be; he hunts out the awkwardest place to take hold of it; he lifts it bodily up in the air by main force, and starts; not toward home, but in the opposite direction; not calmly and wisely, but with a frantic haste which is wasteful of his strength; he fetches up against a pebble, and instead of going around it, he climbs over it backward dragging his booty after him, tumbles down on the other side, jumps up in a passion, kicks the dust off his clothes, moistens his hands, grabs his property viciously, yanks it this way, then that, shoves it ahead of him a moment, turns tail and lugs it after him another moment, gets madder and madder, then presently hoists it into the air and goes tearing away in an entirely new direction; [...] finally stops to rest, and a friend comes along. Evidently the friend remarks that a last year's grasshopper leg is a very noble acquisition, and inquires where he got it.

   2Evidently the proprietor does not remember exactly where he did get it, but thinks he got it “around here somewhere.” Evidently the friend contracts to help him freight it home. Then, with a judgment peculiarly antic (pun not intended), they take hold of opposite ends of that grasshopper leg and begin to tug with all their might in opposite directions. Presently they take a rest and confer together. They decide that something is wrong, they can't make out what. Then they go at it again, just as before. Same result. [...] By and by, when that grasshopper leg has been dragged all over the same old ground once more, it is finally dumped at about the spot where it originally lay, the two perspiring ants inspect it thoughtfully and decide that dried grasshopper legs are a poor sort of property after all, and then each starts off in a different direction to see if he can't find an old nail or something else that is heavy enough to afford entertainment and at the same time valueless enough to make an ant want to own it.

   1The existence of such communities as those of ants or bees implies, no doubt, some power of communication, but the amount is still a matter of doubt. It is well known that if one bee or ant discovers a store of food, others soon find their way to it. This, however, does not prove much. It makes all the difference whether they are brought or sent. If they merely accompany on her return a companion who has brought a store of food, it does not imply much. To test this, therefore, I made several experiments. For instance, one cold day my ants were almost all in their nests. One only was out hunting and about six feet from home. I took a dead bluebottle fly, pinned it on to a piece of cork, and put it down just in front of her. She at once tried to carry off the fly, but to her surprise found it immovable. She tugged and tugged, first one way and then another for about twenty minutes, and then went straight off to the nest. During that time not a single ant had come out; in fact she was the only ant of that nest out at the time. She went straight in, but in a few seconds--less than half a minute--came out again with no less than twelve friends, who trooped off with her, and eventually tore up the dead fly, carrying it off in triumph.

   2Now the first ant took nothing home with her; she must therefore somehow have made her friends understand that she had found some food, and wanted them to come and help her to secure it. In all such cases, however, so far as my experience goes, the ants brought their friends, and some of my experiments indicated that they are unable to send them.

   1. Name the shared topic. Ask: "What question about ants are both writers really answering?" Push past "ants" to a question such as "Do ants act with sense when they find and move food?" Write the agreed question at the top of a two-column chart headed Twain and Lubbock.
   2. Build knowledge first. Ask students to list what both texts report that ants actually did. Expect details such as an ant tugging at an object far too heavy for it and another ant joining in. Mark each with the text and paragraph number. Ask which details a reader can trust more because both writers report something like them.
   3. Compare the approaches. Have students fill the chart with how each writer works: what each one was doing when he watched, how carefully he watched, and the kind of language he uses. Give each pair one sentence from each text to label, and leave the conclusions to the pairs.
   4. Find the disagreement. Ask students to find one place where the two writers disagree about a fact and one where they disagree about what the facts mean. Collect answers without settling them; the quiz returns to this question.

   Grades 6-8 may work from Twain's first paragraph and Lubbock's first paragraph only, with these words glossed: laborious (hard-working), foraging (searching for food), booty (things carried off), immovable (impossible to move).

4. Independent Practice15 minutes

   Each student writes one paragraph of six to eight sentences answering this question: What do Twain and Lubbock, read together, teach a reader about ants, and how do their approaches differ? The paragraph must open with a claim that names both texts, use at least one quotation from each with a paragraph number, and end with a sentence explaining which text a reader should trust more on the facts and why. Grades 6-8 may use the frame: "Both writers show that ___. However, Twain ___, while Lubbock ___." Grades 9-12 add one sentence on what Twain's passage offers that Lubbock's cannot.

5. Closure5 minutes

   Exit ticket: (1) Name one thing you learned about crickets or ants only because you read two texts. (2) In one sentence, describe how the two ant writers' purposes differ.

   Teacher note on the Twain passage: Twain's joke depends on treating the ant as a person. In a sentence left out of the excerpt, he limits his scorn to "the ordinary ant," setting aside the more remarkable kinds that naturalists describe. His account is comedy, not natural history, so students should not take it as fact.

   For homework: students read the two original texts below, written for this page about the same invented flood. Each has three paragraphs.

   1Heavy rain on Tuesday night sent the Bell River over its banks, and the town closed Mill Road at 6 a.m. Wednesday. By noon the river stood 3 feet above flood stage at the Mill Road bridge, according to the town's river gauge.

   2No injuries were reported. Crews placed about 400 sandbags along Front Street, and the middle school opened its gym to six families whose homes took on water.

   3"We have not seen the river this high since 1998," said Public Works Director Ana Ruiz. Mill Road is expected to reopen Friday.

   1I woke up to a sound like a train that never passed. From my window the river was the color of chocolate milk, and the Hendersons' picnic table was floating past the willow.

   2The school bus still came down Mill Road at 7:15, though, splashing through water up to its hubcaps. Mr. Pike drove so slowly that we were late for first period.

   3After school I helped Dad stack sandbags on Front Street until my arms shook. Mrs. Henderson cried when she saw her kitchen. Her family is sleeping in the gym tonight, and I gave her daughter my good flashlight.

Differentiation Strategies

Assessment Guidance

1. Question 1 of 20 · Multiple Choice

   Keats's line 1, "The poetry of earth is never dead," returns at line 9 as "The poetry of earth is ceasing never." What does the repetition do in the poem?

   AIt shows that Keats ran out of new ideas halfway through. BIt opens each half with one idea, so summer and winter both prove it. CIt tells the reader that the grasshopper and the cricket are one insect. DIt marks the place where the speaker falls asleep beside the stove.

2. Question 2 of 20 · Multiple Choice

   In lines 11-12 Hunt tells the insects that "both, though small, are strong / At your clear hearts." What does he mean?

   ABoth insects can carry loads much heavier than themselves. BBoth insects fight off larger animals that try to eat them. CBoth insects live longest in the clear air of the fields. DBoth insects are tiny but have bright, sturdy spirits.

3. Question 3 of 20 · Multiple Choice

   In lines 12-14 of Keats's poem, the cricket's song "seems to one in drowsiness half lost, / The Grasshopper's among some grassy hills." What happens in these lines?

   AA sleepy listener hears the cricket and imagines the summer grasshopper. BThe grasshopper comes indoors in winter to sing beside the cricket. CThe speaker walks out into the hills to look for the grasshopper. DThe cricket stops singing so that the listener can fall asleep.

4. Question 4 of 20 · Multiple Choice

   How do the last lines of the two sonnets differ in approach?

   AKeats ends by naming a shared quality, Mirth; Hunt ends inside a listener's imagination. BBoth poems end by saying that the two insects will soon die in the winter frost. CKeats ends inside a listener's imagination; Hunt ends by naming a shared quality, Mirth. DKeats ends by speaking to the cricket; Hunt ends by describing the grassy hills.

5. Question 5 of 20 · Multiple Choice

   Keats calls the insects' music "The poetry of earth" (line 1), and Hunt says both insects "seem given to earth / To ring in thoughtful ears this natural song" (lines 12-13). Which theme do the two poems share?

   AInsects are pests that spoil both the summer fields and the home. BNature's music never stops, from the summer field to the winter hearth. CPoets ought to write about large animals rather than small insects. DThe cricket's song is far more beautiful than the grasshopper's song.

6. Question 6 of 20 · Multiple Choice

   Which word best describes the attitude that both poets take toward the two insects?

   AAffection BFear CPity DBoredom

7. Question 7 of 20 · Short Answer

   Both sonnets mention the sun. In three or four sentences, compare how each poet uses the sun or sunshine and what that shows about his approach. Quote each poem at least once.

   Show model answer

8. Question 8 of 20 · Multiple Choice

   Twain writes, "During many summers, now, I have watched him, when I ought to have been in better business" (paragraph 1). What kind of evidence is his view of ants based on?

   ACounts and times recorded during planned tests BReports he collected from other naturalists CHis own casual watching over many years DExperiments he ran with ants kept in nests

9. Question 9 of 20 · Multiple Choice

   Why did Lubbock pin the dead fly "on to a piece of cork" before setting it down in front of the ant (paragraph 1)?

   ATo keep the fly fresh so that the ants would want to eat it BTo mark the exact spot where he had found the first ant CTo stop other insects from carrying the fly away first DTo make the fly too hard to move for one ant alone

10. Question 10 of 20 · Multiple Choice

    Lubbock adds, "During that time not a single ant had come out; in fact she was the only ant of that nest out at the time" (paragraph 1). Why does this detail matter to his conclusion?

    AIt shows the twelve ants could not have found the fly by chance. BIt shows that ants stay inside on cold days to save their energy. CIt shows that the first ant was lost and could not find the nest. DIt shows that the fly had been placed too far away from the nest.

11. Question 11 of 20 · Multiple Choice

    Which statement from Twain's passage does Lubbock's account most directly contradict?

    A"I admit his industry, of course" B"He doesn't know where home is." C"Evidently the friend contracts to help him freight it home." D"he lifts it bodily up in the air by main force"

12. Question 12 of 20 · Multiple Choice

    Twain says the ant is "the hardest-working creature in the world--when anybody is looking" (paragraph 1). What does the phrase after the dash add?

    AA fact Twain measured by watching ants with and without people near BA warning that ants will bite people who stand too close to them CA comparison between ants and the people who stop to watch them DA joke that the ant's hard work is only a show for observers

13. Question 13 of 20 · Multiple Choice

    At the end of paragraph 2, Lubbock says that "the ants brought their friends, and some of my experiments indicated that they are unable to send them." What difference is he drawing?

    AAnts can carry food home, but they cannot store it for the winter. BAnts can find food by smell, but they cannot find it by sight. CAnts can lead nestmates to food, but cannot direct them to go alone. DAnts can fight strangers, but cannot recognize their own friends.

14. Question 14 of 20 · Multiple Choice

    Twain calls the ant "a strangely overrated bird" (paragraph 1). What does this phrase show about his approach?

    AHe treats the topic playfully and does not aim for scientific accuracy. BHe has confused ants with birds, so none of his facts can be trusted. CHe is quoting a naturalist who believed that some ants could fly. DHe wants his readers to stop studying ants and study birds instead.

15. Question 15 of 20 · Multiple Choice

    In Lubbock's test, the first ant came back out of the nest "with no less than twelve friends." How many ants in all set off to the fly after she came back out?

    A12 B13 C20 D6

16. Question 16 of 20 · Short Answer

    Using both ant passages, write two statements about ants that a reader can trust more after reading both texts, and one question the texts leave unsettled. Cite a paragraph for each.

    Show model answer

17. Question 17 of 20 · Multiple Choice

    Which task asks students mainly to build knowledge rather than to compare approaches?

    AExplain why one writer uses humor and the other does not. BDecide which author's point of view is more sympathetic. CCompare how two poets use the fourteen lines of a sonnet. DCombine three reports into one timeline of a storm.

18. Question 18 of 20 · Multiple Choice

    A student writes, "Twain and Lubbock both write about ants, so their texts say the same thing." What is the main problem with this claim?

    AThe two texts are not really about ants at all. BA humorous text cannot be compared with science. CSharing a topic does not mean sharing a view of it. DLubbock's text is too old to compare with Twain's.

19. Question 19 of 20 · Short Answer

    Write a thesis sentence that compares the approaches of either pair of texts in this lesson. Then give one quotation from each text that supports it.

    Show model answer

20. Question 20 of 20 · Short Answer

    How does reading Lubbock change the way a reader understands Twain's passage? Answer in three or four sentences with evidence from both texts.

    Show model answer

These are the grade-level standards that carry anchor CCRA.R.9 in grades 6-12, plus closely related anchors.

Standard text: Common Core State Standards for English Language Arts & Literacy. © Copyright 2010. National Governors Association Center for Best Practices and Council of Chief State School Officers. All rights reserved.