Guide to Structuring Comparing Texts Essays
Yo yo yo! It's time for a fun-filled-caffeine-fuelled-crash-course in the Comparing Texts Area of Study! Since everyone in Year 12 seems be hitting this delightful brick wall of confusion at the same time, what follows is an overview of the
most optimal ways to structure your essays to achieve high marks in your Unit 4 SAC, and in the exam

Of course, there are different ways of approaching this task, and if your teacher is stringently advocating for a particular method, you should absolutely stick with that for your SAC. But I'll give you my best advice and the reasons behind it all so that you can make an informed decision about what will work best for you at the end of the year.
First, we'll go over some general tips for dealing with prompts, then introductions, body paragraphs, and conclusions, followed by some general FAQs

Dissecting Prompts
Much like Text Response prompts, these can come in a variety of shapes and sizes. For the most part, you can think of all of these as having the same 4 categories though:
1. Character-based prompts: e.g. 'Compare the way women in these texts seek to control their lives.'
2. Thematic prompts: MOST COMMON! e.g. 'Compare what the two texts suggest about gaining wisdom.'
3. Views and values prompts: e.g. 'It is individual courage and determination that help bring about change in society.’ Explore points of comparison in the way this issue is dealt with in the two texts.'
4. Structural prompts: e.g. 'How to the two texts explore the importance of memory?'
For the most part though, the Comparing Texts AOS will give you prompts that are a combination of thematic and views and values prompts, and will be some paraphrased version of:
'Compare what the two texts say about __________.'
i.e. 'Compare how the two texts explore _____.'
'How do the two texts explore the importance of _____.'
'What do the two texts suggest about _____.'
'Using these quotations, explore how the two texts convey the idea that _____.' etc. etc.
If you want to get more granular, you can separate the wording of quotes into four other types:
1. statement about an idea +
Compare how the texts explore the idea of _____. (e.g. 'Where there is no freedom, there can be no happiness.' Compare the way these texts explore this idea.')
2. "quote from one text" +
Compare the way the two texts explore the idea of _____. (e.g. "Memory is pain trying to resurrect itself" (The Longest Memory) Compare the way this idea is conveyed in these texts.)
3. "quote from text 1" + "quote from text 2" +
Compare the way the two texts explore the idea of _____. (e.g. "Overwhelmingly, my desire was to melt in; not to disappear but just to feel … less obvious." (Joyful Strains)
"…to a casual observer, the Gangulis, apart from the name on their mailbox … appear no different from their neighbors." (The Namesake)
Compare what the two texts say about adapting to a new culture)
4. statement with specific textual details +
Compare the way the two texts explore the idea of _____. (e.g. Both Anna Funder and Winston must come to terms with a world they do not feel a part of. Compare the ways Stasiland and 1984 explore the notions of isolation and confusion.)
Note: You will never be given a quote without also being given the text name in (brackets) afterwards, so don't stress about accidentally attributing a quote to the wrong text!

Ultimately, your approach will be pretty similar regardless of the prompt types you're dealt though. Your first priority should be finding the
core idea of the prompt - boil it down to the most basic elements and explain what this prompt basically wants you to write about.
For example, if your prompt was
‘The power of hope to bring change is limitless.’ Compare the way the two texts explore this idea then the core would be
hope can bring change no matter what. <-- that's the underlying idea that you have to base your interpretations around. Or, if you got something like
‘The black diggers and Whitechapel receive the treatment inflicted on them by the white men with a mixture of acceptance and rebellion.’ Compare how the truth of this statement is conveyed in the two texts then the core would be
people respond to prejudice in different ways.This helps you simplify things, and can give you a good reference point to come back to if you're ever worried that what you're writing isn't relevant.
Once you've found this core, you can start to construct your 'contention,' which for this AOS will be your answer to the question:
what are the messages of the two texts? How are they similar? How are they different?As such, one of the
best things you can do for preparation now is to come up with statements that summarise these similarities and differences. Luckily, there's a lovely little template you can use for this:
Although... >similarity<, ultimately... >difference<
OR
Although... >difference<, ultimately... >similarity<
For instance:
-
Although the characters in both texts are confronted by the depths of despair and desperation,
ultimately their responses are what determines their survival.
-
Although the texts explore very different kinds of discrimination,
ultimately they are united by their portrayal of hope and optimism in such circumstances.
These kinds of sentences will be hugely useful for the ends of your body paragraphs and for your intros and conclusions

Introductions
Luckily, your intros can be pretty short and sweet - they just have to tick the following boxes:
- Introduce the two texts (ideally in separate sentences)
- Link the two texts to the core of the prompt
- State what each text is saying about the core (ideally using one of those 'Although... ultimately...' sentence types)
Sample high-scoring intro for Stasiland and 1984
"If you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face – for ever." (Nineteen Eighty-Four)
"He who puts himself in danger will die." (Stasiland)
Compare what the two texts say about the threat of punishment as a means of control.
Anna Funder's memoir Stasiland explores the potent power of control and the consequences this has for those who are under threat from it. Likewise, George Orwell's dystopian Nineteen Eighty-Four depicts a world oppressed by an autocratic regime where the fear of consequences is wielded as a tool for compounding subjugation. However, where Orwell's novel features characters in the midst of dictatorial control, wracked with terror at the thought of danger and punishment, Stasiland instead concerns itself with the aftermath of these threatening forces and the extent to which individuals can overcome them. To this end, although Orwell and Funder both examine the ways in which a fear of punishment stems from the desire to control, ultimately they differ in their portrayal of characters' responses to the physical and psychological ramifications.
Don't waste too much time signposting your key ideas for each paragraph (unless you find it useful to chuck all these in your intro). Just make it clear which texts you're talking about, and MAKE YOUR INTRO RELEVANT TO THE PROMPT. The worst thing you can do is waffle on about the background information for the two texts without actually linking the texts to one another, or to the prompt.
Sample low/mid-scoring intro for Invictus and Ransom
"Look, he wants to shout, I am still here, but the I is different." (Ransom)
Compare the way the two texts explore the idea that people can change.
The apartheid of South Africa between 1948 and 1991 was a turbulent and divisive period of modern history. It is against this backdrop that Clint Eastwood's 2009 film Invictus is set, based on John Carlin's book Playing the Enemy: Nelson Mandela and the Game That Made a Nation, chronicling the role of inspirational revolutionary Nelson Mandela and the rise of South Africa's national rugby union team, the Springboks, captained by François Pienaar. Over the course of the film, the country rallies behind the team in spite of the racial tensions that once divided them, and the film presents an ultimately uplifting view of the power of unity. David Malouf's Ransom also takes inspiration from historical events and stories. Based on the final excerpts of Homer's epic Greek poem, The Iliad, Malouf's novel follows Achilles and Priam amidst the Trojan War, and explores the role of guilt, communication, and storytelling in shaping the lives of those involved.
Any assessor reading that much junk is going to get to the end and be like 'yeah... no kidding... I
know what the texts are about...'
Don't waste their time with plot synopses and historical context - get to the core of the prompt and the texts asap!
Body Paragraphs
Okay, so this is where a lot of the confusion lies. It can be hard enough working out what your body paragraphs will be about in a Text Response essay... how the hell do you break it down when there are
TWO texts involved?
There are a couple of different possibilities here, but long story short, MAKE SURE YOU WRITE ABOUT
BOTH TEXTS IN
EVERY PARAGRAPH! The worst thing you can do is to just write one paragraph on each, and/or writing a 'comparison paragraph' at the end. Your whole essay should be comparative! So your whole essay should integrate both texts and switch back and forth between them. There are two main methods I would recommend, which I will outline below.
FIRST METHOD: 'the 1-2-Switch'
This method is very straightforward, and lets you maximise the amount of separate, in-depth analysis you can do for each text. All you need to do is start by analysing the first text for approximately half a paragraph, then find an important link to bridge to the second text, then switch to analysing the second text for the remainder of the paragraph (before rounding it all off with a nice concluding sentence that links the texts together again).
It doesn't have to be a perfect 50/50 ratio each time, though you should aim for roughly that over the course of your essay as a whole. For instance:
- Para 1: 70% on text A; 30% on text B
- Para 2: 20% on text A; 80% on text B
- Para 2: 60% on text A; 40% on text B
It also doesn't matter which order you deal with the texts - so long as
both are in
every paragraph, and you're making SUBSTANTIAL connections between them each time. In other words, don't have dodgy transition sentences like 'Much like
Bombshells, Atwood's
The Penelopiad also features many female characters!' Your transitions should be about
meaningful structural and thematic connections - not trivial similarities in the plot or other basic details.
Sample high-scoring body paragraph for Bombshells and The Penelopiad
"And so I was handed over to Odysseus, like a package of meat." (The Penelopiad)
"…I’m going to belong to someone! I’m not going to be floating on that endless ocean of singlehood." (Bombshells)
Compare the way women in these texts seek to control their lives.
In both Bombshells and The Penelopiad, female characters are driven by a fear of losing control over their own trajectories. This is foregrounded in the fragmented nature of Bombshell's structure as Murray-Smith moves between different voices and perspectives, uniting all six women in their shared apprehensions and anxieties. This notion of losing control is particularly evident in Meryl Louise Davenport's monologue in which her rapid, erratic speech betrays her perilous mental state. Murray-Smith establishes Meryl as being on a "frenetic stream-of-consciousness sprint" in the opening stage directions, and even remarks that she "begins very slowly and then builds in pace" to reinforce the notion of gradually losing control. Her dialogue is also interspersed with outbursts of repetition like "keys keys keys" or capitalised exclamations like "EVERYONE OUT!!!" which forms a stark contrast to the mundanity of most of her concerns as she goes through her daily routine. Much of what troubles her are prosaic activities, exemplified in delineations like "got to clean car - got to water the garden - fridge is filthy, need a coffee." However, the audience shares in her frustrations due to the overwhelming amount of quotidian tasks Meryl expects herself to fulfil, and the fact that by the day's end, she is forced to lull herself to sleep with a list of everything she failed to do, including the otherwise trite responsibilities like "sort[ing] socks" and "read[ing] the paper." Ultimately, Murray-Smith evokes audience's sympathies for a character so burdened with the weight of her own expectations, and her fear of disappointing others as she projects her perceptions of their judgement onto herself, and obsesses over masking her inadequacies with "lipstick... that way the other mothers will think [she is] in control." Thus, Murray-Smith implies that even when women are overcome with hysteria and anxiety, they are still compelled to conceal their plight and appear in control for the sake of others. This idea of shrouding or suppressing one's apprehensions and insecurities is also evident in The Penelopiad. After arriving at Ithaca - as was the duty of the "package of meat" who was "handed over to Odysseus" in marriage - Penelope is scared and isolated - a "stranger among strange people." However, this loneliness is exacerbated by her lack of close relationships, and her only outlet is "secluded weeping" as she felt obliged to "conceal [her] unhappiness" for fear of seeming unappreciated. Even after Odysseus' departure, Penelope "cried so much [she] thought [she] would turn into a river or a fountain" and her tears become a recurring symbol of her suffering throughout the text. For her, the societal expectations of marriage and motherhood also become burdensome, though in keeping with what she was known for - "being smart" - she was able to be somewhat pragmatic in her situation. Indeed it is Penelope's "deceitful encouragings" of her suitors and her "skilful... misdirect[ion]" that she regains some control over her own story, but this is ultimately undone in Atwood's characterisation of Penelope in the afterlife remarking that "the interpretation of the whole Trojan war episode has changed." Hence, Penelope seeks to control not just her life, but also the interpretation of it, which is conveyed to be an incredibly challenging task due to the malleable nature of stories and perception. To this end, Atwood's deconstruction of the tale represents an attempt to reclaim control, though both texts have a shared appreciation for how this is made difficult by the views, or perceived views, of others.
SECOND METHOD: 'the Rainbow Connection'
This method maximises the amount and frequency of the connections you make over the course of your paragraphs. Here, you still analyse the texts separately, but only for a couple of sentences before you switch to the next one, and back again. This is easiest to explain visually:
Pretty, pretty colours
Red = analysis of Text 1
Blue = analysis of Text 2
Purple = links/transitions between texts
As you can see above, we can use the purple link-y phrases or sentences to signal transitions between one text and another so that, although you're still spending a decent amount of time on isolated points of analysis, you're also making frequent connections and comparisons to the other text.
Sample high-scoring body paragraph for The Crucible and Year of Wonders
What do these texts suggest about human behaviour in a crisis?
In The Crucible, many of the characters act irrationally and without fearfully due to the uncertainty that the crisis evoked. Even Miller's choice of title is a meaningful embodiment of this idea as a crucible is a melting pot in which elements are moulded together in high temperatures to create something new. In other words, the characters are brought together by crisis, and new behaviours and secrets are revealed. This is also true of Brooks' novel, as the people of Eyam are confined by their self-imposed quarantine and respond to the plague in vastly different ways. Brooks offers glimpses of the spectrum of emotional reactions - from Josiah Bont's avarice to Aphra's madness, Eyam is plagued not just with the Black Death, but also with the dangerous reality of scared, desperate people who bring the crucible of their town to boiling point. In both texts however, there are examples of both constructive and desctructive behaviours. Miller's John Proctor, in spite of his indiscretions, is ultimately vindicated for his decision to tear up his confession and not "sign himself to lies." Even other characters such as Francis and Rebecca Nurse emerge as courageous and resolute people, respected for their "great charities" and attempts to make the people of Salem see reason. This contrasts to the lies and guilty conscience of Mary Warren who causes harm to others by speaking "in terror," and the selfish remorselessness of Abigail Williams who threatens to "bring a pointy reckoning" to those who defy her. Year of Wonders has a similar gamut of behaviours, particularly with regards to characters who exacerbate their own suffering as well as that of their fellow townsfolk. John Gordon is incredibly presumptive when accusing Mem and others of witchcraft, and even turns his violent abuse to his own wife Urith before she is saved by the arrival of Mompellion. Throughout most of the novel, the rector is portrayed as the town's bastion of moral strength in times of crisis, however, as Anna comes to understand, Mompellion is eventually "broken by [their] shared ordeal" whilst she had been "tempered and made strong." Unlike Miller's bleak portrayal of the fate of honest, innocent people amidst hysteria, Brooks offers a somewhat more optimiatic portrait of a protagonist who braves others' responses to crisis and develops into a more empathetic, independent individual with the capacity to "bring comfort." After her departure to Oran, she is "Anna Frith no longer" and is instead known as the Umm Jam-ee - mother of Jamie." This symbolic shedding of her former self is emblematic of Anna's transformation, and forms part of Brooks' broader elevation of those who embrace the challenges of crises and forge a desire to "go on until [they] found some reason for it." To this end, while Miller explores the complex reasons behind characters' lies and reputations in times of crisis, Brooks' novel is more concerned with the aftermath of such events, and the markedly different ways people respond to them.
In summary, you don't have to stress too much about planning out your body paragraph structure. Try to work out whether the first or second method suits your writing/thinking style best (or maybe mix it up and do both for different paragraphs). Just make sure you are ticking the boxes for both
analysis/evidence AND
comparison!Conclusions
Like the introduction, don't waste too much time here. Make some grand sweeping statements about the focus of each text, and then discuss some relevant similarities and differences overall. You don't need to summarise all of your points, and you don't need to run through every major idea you've talked about in your essay - just 'zoom out' to the big picture stuff. You should have already solidified your marks for analysis, so all the ending has to do is show us that you understand the texts' broad messages and intentions (with regards to the core of the prompt).
Sample high-scoring conclusion for I Am Malala and Made in Dagenham
Both Malala and Rita come to understand the importance of having a voice. Compare what these texts say about standing up for justice.
Thus, I Am Malala suggests that although standing up for justice can be predicated on sacrifice, it has profoundly positive and wide-reaching consequences. Likewise, Made in Dagenham showcases the necessity of taking a stand for equality and fair treatment, even when facing opposition. Hence, both texts are united in their depiction of Malala and Rita's strength and devotion to their own beliefs, and whilst their voices are met with different kinds of resistance, ultimately they share a sense of optimism in the belief in the potential for change and achieving justice.
FAQs
Q. How many quotes do I need!?A:
very approximately 3 quotes from each text for each paragraph would be a good minimum to hit (so six in total for each paragraph). However, you should be able to use short, flexible quotes constantly throughout your discussion, so if you're hitting double-digits, you're doing well! Just remember to
USE the quotes and not simply
INCLUDE them. 3 quotes that are actually analysed and well-explained would be better than 10 quotes that are just inserted into your sentences without explanation.
Q. How long should my essay be!?A:
very approximately 800 - 1000 words is what VCAA has specified. Aim for closer to 1000 if you're shooting for scores of 8+/10, though as always quality > quantity. On a related note, try to have roughly even paragraph splits (i.e. don't have one paragraph that's 300 words and another that's 100).
Q. How is this different to Text Response!?A: aside from having to deal with two texts at once, there aren't many differences between these two essay types. You get a choice of two prompts, you have to mount a case for your interpretation of the texts, and you have to write a piece that uses quotes and evidence to support your ideas.
~~~ Drop any other questions you have below, and I'll add to this FAQ section as we go! 