Two and a half years ago (has it really been that long?) my first SatWE challenge dealt with something I enjoyed in school and most of my schoolmates hated.
Many of my tests included essay questions and there were several teachers that stuck in that “compare and contrast” statement as an introduction to the question. Most of my friends hated that but I liked them because it gave me some focus for my writing.
Yep, we’re doing compare and contrast this week and -- because I’m such a nice guy -- in the “Ideas” section, I gave you a bunch of things you can use. Feel free to use any of those or you can come up with something of your own. Whatever you decide, start thinking of the format you’re going to use.
You might use one paragraph or stanza to show how the two objects are the same and then a second paragraph or stanza to show how they’re different.
An alternative is to use one paragraph or stanza to describe the first item and then use a second paragraph to describe the second item. This format might require a third paragraph or stanza to explain your conclusions.
This Week’s Challenge:
Using prose or poetry, write something brief showing how two things are similar and how they are different. Do not favor either one -- you’re not trying to convince us that one is better than the other -- just compare and contrast the two items.
Ideas:
Veggies and red meat for dinner.
Matches and a Zippo lighter.
Candles and tiki torches.
PC and Mac.
Red paint and green paint. [Think CMYK, RYB, and RGB models.]
Paper and plastic grocery bags.
Hot and cold. [The scientists out there will immediately see both the relationship between the two and the dichotomy.]
Coffee and Tea. [Hot or cold, sweetened, with cream or milk?]
Coke and Pepsi.
Diet and regular drinks.
Dogs and cats. [This was the original premise in that first challenge.]
Watch Out For:
This is not “versus.” Do not stress how or why one is better than the other. Just show how they’re the same and how they differ.
I warned you last time, and I'll include it here: do not compare and contrast your spouse or significant other with a fungus or vegetable.
Recap:
A tad light this week on responses. Let’s see if we can’t do better with this new challenge. Because there were only three responses, it shouldn’t take you too long to read each of the following.
while len sleeps satwe if I had a Kazillion dollars. Aug 11/12 by karen vaughan
The Midas Fortune Is Mine? (Saturday Writing Essential 08/11/12) by G.M. Jackson
Lottery Winner (Saturday Writing Essential) by Len Maxwell
Weekly reminder: Don't forget to recommend an article that you like (to learn why, read Ann Marcaida's article Attract More Writers and Artists to Gather!). Also, try to place a comment on at least one article and say more than you liked the piece. Tell the author what worked and what needs work.
The Rules:
- Put this challenge statement at the beginning or end of your submission so readers will know what you’re supposed to do.
Challenge: Using prose or poetry, write something brief showing how two things are similar and how they are different. Do not favor either one -- you’re not trying to convince us that one is better than the other -- just compare and contrast the two items.
- There is a limit of three submissions from each member per day. If you’re extremely prolific, spread out your work and post only three submissions per day.
- Post to Gather Writing Essential.
- Tag your submission with SatWE.
- Include (Saturday Writing Essential) as part of your title.
- I ask that you make your submission(s) by next Friday afternoon.
Good Writing!
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In just twenty-four hours, the globe-like planet Earth travels nearly 1,600,000 miles along the imagined arc that we use to describe its orbit around the sun. That's far enough to cause a noticeable difference in the point along the horizon where we observe that sun 'rising.' The point where it sets in the evening will have changed by the same small distance. if it is after the summer solstice[longest day], as it is now[AUG 15], the two 'points' are moving towards one another, and are both moving south of the position observed on the previous day. The angle of the sun[measuring from a fixed point on the horizon which is due south] at mid-day is getting smaller each day as well. The sun is 'swinging south,' so that our friends living in the southern hemisphere can get a little more daylight each day, until their summertime peaks, and the shifting once again reverses itself.
Before spoken language became a written one, which technically is when our 'history' began, societies were organized quite differently; the men[& women] being 'organized,' thought differently, and communicated these thoughts to one another differently as well. Those 'pre-historic' methods of communication structured their thinking, just as surely as our reliance on symbols for sounds to communicate structures our own thinking. Can you think about something[some aspect of your environment, or some aspect of your 'relationship' with another] for which you have no words with which to express those thoughts? Ingesting certain psychoactive plants will facilitate just such unorthodox thinking. We suspect that many of the 'pre-historic' societies that developed written languages, and began creating a history that can be studied today, preserved some form of ritual plant use, throughout the developmental periods[sometimes quite prolonged] which fostered basic and radical changes to their societies, and to the methods used to organize and govern them.
here's a tentative THIRD PARAGRAPH:
As I was drinking my SENIOR COFFEE this morning, Mickey D's crouched beneath a BUTTERMILK SKY, that was leaking diffused sunbeams. How many skies are there? Do you study them ever? One 'student,' years ago, gazed aloft, and a 'connection' was made; out tumbled the two words[ever after wedded to one another]. Each peculiar word in our English language describes something, that some far-removed student felt quite sure we might miss, if there were no new term, by which we might be reMINDed. Take WEREWOLF for example; a genetic anomaly that disfigures a statistically stable fraction of the human population; didn't it require a NAME? And the conclusion being:What name that you have heard does not describe something 'observable' in our restricted universe?
Contrast: One just lays on the couch and the other one rolls around on it.