Earlier in this unit you mapped what two characters from your anchor text want and what stands in their way. Today you put those two side by side.

If you missed that lesson or your map is thin, name any two characters from your anchor text who would make opposite choices in the same moment. If you have a Lesson 15 motivation map, use that pair.

Writers often build drama by placing opposite people in the same room. Your job is to name the gaps between them, weigh those gaps, and write a clear Character Comparison Sheet for your Communication Portfolio.

If time runs short later: go straight to the Comparison Sheet using the six starter criteria. That sheet is the piece you bank today; finish any polish at home if you need to.

Before you turn to your anchor text, look at how contrast works on a short scene written for this lesson. Two characters share one goal and pull in opposite directions.

Three terms to hold

• Contrast: a clear difference in want, speech, action, or how others treat them.
• Similarity: something the two still share, so the pair belongs in the same story.
• Tension: the pull the reader feels when those differences matter in the same moment.

Short scene (provided)

Aoife and Marcus stand at the bus stop with one ticket left between them and forty minutes until the last coach. Aoife has the printed timetable folded in her coat. She has already counted the cash twice. Marcus keeps looking up the road as if a lift might appear. When a stranger offers them a crowded car going halfway, Marcus says yes before Aoife has finished reading the stranger's face. Aoife says no. Neither of them moves.

What the contrast is doing

• Want: both want to get closer to home before dark (similarity).
• Method: Aoife trusts plans and proof; Marcus trusts speed and chance (contrast).
• Speech: Aoife asks questions; Marcus answers in short yeses (contrast).
• Risk: Aoife protects the last ticket; Marcus would spend it on a maybe (contrast).
• Effect on the reader: the scene holds because one decision cannot satisfy both instincts (tension).

You will use the same five-point shape on two characters from your own anchor text.

A fair comparison needs agreed measures before you start judging. The weighing grid in the next step uses these six fixed criteria. Your job here is to confirm each one, note which will cut deepest for your pair, and add a short story-specific angle where it helps.

You are not building a separate freeform list. These six are the measures the next interactive will use. Your notes travel with you into the write-up.

Add your two anchor-text characters as the options. The six criteria match the ones you just confirmed. Write a short note in each cell, then rate each character and set how much each criterion matters.

Change one weight and watch which character comes out ahead. That movement is the point: a comparison is a reasoned judgement, not a fixed score.

Keep your notes. You will turn them into full sentences on the Comparison Sheet next. This grid is working material, not the Portfolio entry.

This sheet, not the criteria list or the grid, is the Portfolio entry for today.

This is the Portfolio Build. Turn your notes into a clear Character Comparison Sheet another reader could follow without seeing the interactive.

Name both characters. Cover at least five points of similarity or difference. End with one short paragraph on how the contrast creates dramatic tension in the story.

Aim for one strong draft of about 120–180 words in class. A solid first draft still counts today. If you want a tighter second pass, polish at home or at the start of next lesson.

When you finish, save or copy the sheet into your Communication Portfolio as m1_l16_character_comparison_<your-initials> (Word, Docs, or a photographed handwritten page).