"Two Kinds," Amy Tan

Choose a well-developed character from one of the stories in the list below (it need not be the protagonist, but you can choose him or her if you want to), and
compare/contrast the character to someone you know well in real life:
◦ "Two Kinds," Amy Tan
◦ "Harrison Bergeron," Kurt Vonnegut
◦ "Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?" Joyce Carol Oates
◦ "The Jacket," Gary Soto
Make sure that you don't pick a minor or uninteresting character and run out of things to say! Picking the right material is part of the challenge of any
writing assignment.
The big challenge in writing a compare/contrast essay, though, is to avoid stating the obvious. If you pick two very similar people to write about, you won't
keep your reader's interest long if you stress the obvious similarities between them (for example, they're both men, they're both Latinos, or they're both
bricklayers). If you pick two very
different people, stay away from the differences that any casual reader picks up on first reading: one is a serial murderer, and one is a peaceful, loving
mother of four. (What's most interesting here is that they are both critical care nurses, and they both like fast cars!)
Since you're writing about two essentially dissimilar subjects to begin with--a fictional entity and a real family member or neighbor--you'll probably begin by
looking for similarities. But once you've gotten a start on this process, start looking for what is interesting; some of your papers will focus on differences,
some on similarities, depending on your subject matter.
You can use either strategy described in the Bedford Guide to organize your paper, but I strongly recommend the "point by point" approach. Whichever
strategy you choose, your thesis statement and each topic sentence should mention both your real and fictional subjects.
You will need to quote and paraphrase from the story that you choose just as you did in Essay 4--but, again, the emphasis should be on quoted evidence . If
necessary, refer back to that assignment for more information about using citations and avoiding plagiarism.