Comparing the Regions
The objective's verb is 'compare'
- Compare the effects of the development of colonial society in the various regions of North America.
- A comparison needs a basis — the same question asked of each region, not a paragraph each.
- The CED's own bases are ready-made: labour, economy, settlement pattern, government, and relations with native peoples.
A comparison needs...
The CED's own bases are ready-made.
Labour is the sharpest basis
- New England: relatively few enslaved labourers on small family farms.
- Chesapeake and southern coast: plantations with large numbers of enslaved workers, and often an enslaved majority in the far south.
- One question, four different answers, and every one of them is in the CED's own text.
Match each region to how power was exercised.
Both are self-government; the difference is the evidence.
Government is the second basis
- New England: participatory town meetings electing colonial legislatures.
- Southern colonies: elite planters exercising local authority and dominating elected assemblies.
- Both are self-government, and comparing them without noticing the difference wastes the strongest evidence available.
A basis of comparison, a difference, or a similarity?
Sort each element of a regional comparison.
Select both similarities across the British regions.
The regions differ in degree and form, not in presence.
A comparison needs a basis, not a paragraph per region. Ask the same question — labour, economy, settlement, government, relations with native peoples — of each region, and end on which difference mattered most; that sentence is what turns a table into an argument.
The sentence that turns a table into an argument says which difference ____ most.
The CED asks for effects, so end on a consequence.
And a similarity worth stating
- Every British region participated in the Atlantic slave trade to varying degrees, and every one built self-governing institutions.
- So the regions differ in degree and form, not in whether these features were present.
- A comparison that finds a genuine similarity as well as differences is stronger than one that only contrasts.
Each comparison should end on...
The objective asks about effects.
Writing a comparison
- Choose two regions and two bases, and give four statements plus one sentence saying which difference mattered most.
- The which mattered most sentence is what turns a table into an argument.
- The CED asks for effects, so end each comparison on a consequence, not on a description.
Two colonies both hold elections and both hold people in bondage. Writing that down twice is a description. Saying which of those two facts made the two places diverge, and why, is a comparison.
Compare the effects of the development of colonial society in the various regions of North America — using the CED's own bases: labour (New England's few enslaved labourers against an enslaved majority in the far south), economy (mixed, cereal export, tobacco, plantation cash crops), government (participatory town meetings against elite planters dominating elected assemblies), and relations with native peoples. Note a similarity too: every region participated to varying degrees and every one built self-governing institutions.