Home > English Language Arts Worksheets > Compare and Contrast

The ability to compare and contrast is an important skill. It is useful in evaluating works about similar topics, arguments about positions and conclusions, deals that are being offered, and more. This collection of activity sheets will teach your students how to compare and contrast ideas, stories, and statements. In addition to evaluating whole works, your students will learn which words are used to signal either a comparison or a contrast. Answer keys are provided.

Project Idea: Have your students pull similar item descriptions from sales papers, Amazon, or other retail advertisers, and compare and contrast features, benefits, prices, and options.

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Jimmy and Evelyn

Jimmy and Evelyn have both written about their recent birthday parties. Read both paragraphs. Then compare and contrast them by writing the things that they did on the lines below beneath their names. If they did anything that was the same, write it in the middle.

Two Buildings

Think about two buildings that you are familiar with. They can be two different homes, two different schools, or any combination of buildings.

Transition Words

Writers use transition words to make writing easier to follow, and one kind of transition indicates that the writer is comparing or contrasting things. This organizational pattern emphasizes the similarities or differences between two or more items.

Is There Any Comparison?

Read each sentence. Does it compare or contrast? Underline the clue words. Write your answer on the line.

Two Subjects

Compare and contrast two subjects that you are currently studying in school.

Five Minutes Flat!

Choose one of the writing prompts below. Write a compare-and-contrast paragraph that answers the prompt. Write as much as you can, as fast as you can, in five minutes. Use the back of the page if you need more space.

Alternating and Dividing

. In the alternating method, you compare and contrast two subjects point for point. In the dividing method, you make all of your points about the first subject; then you make all of your points about the second subject.

Workshop

This is a nice mix of paragraph and sentence work.

The Venn Diagram

You can also use a Venn Diagram to map out what is the same and what is different about two topics in a piece of writing. For this exercise, you will use a Venn Diagram to organize your thoughts about two subjects. Then you will write a paragraph that compares and/or contrasts the subjects.

To School or Homeschool?

Read the passage. Then answer the questions.

Purpose and Intent

Which sentence best describes the overall intent of this article?

Peter and Marcus

Peter and Marcus have both written short descriptions of their pets. Read each description. Then fill out the Venn Diagram below to compare the two dogs.

Alternating and Dividing Round 2

Does it use an alternating or dividing pattern? Write your answer on the line.

Your Parents

Think about your parents. Are they a lot alike? Or a case of opposites attract? Using an alternating pattern, write a paragraph that both compares and contrasts them.

Venn Comparison

Compare the robots we set in front of you.

Works of Dickens

Identify at least three differences in the way that Dickens describes the old men. Then write two versions of a paragraph in which you contrast the passages. In the first version, use the alternating pattern of contrasting. In the second version, use the dividing method of contrasting.