Making two pieces of evidence talk to each other
Most students, when asked to compare two texts (or two moments in one text), do this: paragraph about Text A… then paragraph about Text B… then a summary sentence. That is not comparison. That is stapling two descriptions together and hoping the reader spots the relationship.
IB Criterion B rewards integrated comparison — where the two texts sit inside the same sentences, arguing with each other. The connector words are the hinges.
Atwood uses a maze metaphor to describe freedom. She says a rat is free inside the maze. This shows that freedom is limited.
Orwell ends Animal Farm by saying pigs and men look the same. This shows that revolutions fail.
Both writers use images to make a point about society.
Where Atwood reaches for a containing image — a maze whose walls cannot be seen from within — Orwell reaches for a mirrored one, the pigs and men whose faces have merged. Both writers refuse to give the reader a clean exit: Atwood's reader is left pacing inside an invisible perimeter; Orwell's, failing to tell one face from another. The difference lies in mechanism: Atwood's image controls through architecture, whereas Orwell's controls through perception.
In Paper 1 (unseen text analysis), you are comparing two moments in the same text. In Paper 2 (literature comparison), you are comparing two whole works. The move is the same: make the two pieces talk to each other in every sentence.
Comparison lives in the connector words. Stop writing "Also, in Text B…" — that is a stapler sound. Start writing with phrases that do actual work.
Not just "both" — "both" + what they share.
"Different" is the weakest comparative word in English. Use these instead.
Phrases that set up similarity first, then pivot to difference (or vice versa) inside one sentence.
For the evaluation slot — when you want to name a pattern that holds across both texts.
Same five slots from Lesson 4. Two texts. Every sentence contains both — linked by a connector.
The same move works if you are comparing two moments within a single passage (Paper 1).
Below are two stapled paragraphs. Your job: rewrite them as one integrated PACER paragraph where every sentence contains both texts.
Atwood uses the metaphor of a rat in a maze. She says the rat is free but cannot leave. This shows that freedom is limited.
Orwell uses the image of pigs and men to show the reader that the animals have become like the humans. His sentence is confusing on purpose.
Both writers use images to make a point about society. They show how things do not really change.
Your task: rewrite this as one integrated paragraph, using PACER slots. Aim for 5–6 sentences. Every sentence should include something about both writers or use a connector word that pulls them together.
Start with something like "Both writers…" or "Where X…, Y…"
Name Atwood's choice and what it does to the reader.
Use a connector phrase ("by contrast", "where... does X, Y does...", "a similar move is made by...").
"Together, these choices..." or "Read side by side..."
The reader is not "left thinking about both" — they are positioned in some specific way.
P: Both Atwood and Orwell refuse to grant the reader a clean exit from their text — though one writer builds the walls of containment while the other dissolves the line between observer and observed.
A: Atwood's maze metaphor reframes freedom as architecture, the hinge word "as long as" withholding any movement the walls have not already permitted.
C: Where Atwood encloses the reader inside a perimeter, Orwell empties the reader of judgement in the present — his repeated swing "pig to man, and from man to pig" mimics the animals' scanning gaze and implicates the reader in the same failure of distinction.
E: Together, architectural containment and perceptual indistinguishability produce a shared argument: that the price of moral comfort is paid by whoever stops noticing the edge of what contains them.
R: Read side by side, the two passages leave the reader positioned as both inmate and eyewitness — pacing an invisible perimeter Atwood will not reveal, and unable to settle the distinction Orwell has dissolved.
What to check in yours: count the times each text appears. Aim for both to appear in at least 3 of your 5 sentences.
Write one sentence that contains both quotes above, using a connector from Tab 1.
1. Where Atwood's "free... as long as it stays inside the maze" holds the reader inside an invisible perimeter, Orwell's "impossible to say which was which" strands them inside an act of perception that has already failed.
2. Both writers refuse the reader a settled view: Atwood by making the walls invisible, Orwell by making the distinction between oppressor and oppressed indistinguishable.
3. If Atwood's image seals the reader in by redefining what freedom means, Orwell's melts the wall between oppressor and oppressed — in each case, the reader's position is the point of the writing.
| Move | Phrase | Use when… |
|---|---|---|
| Pair | Both X and Y… | You are asserting a shared move |
| Pivot | Where X… , Y… | You are naming a difference with precision |
| Hinge | If X is A, Y is its B | You are setting up similarity-with-a-twist |
| Zoom | Together / Read side by side… | You are naming a pattern that requires both |