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Paper Instructions:

A comparative analysis essay asks you to break down two or more texts, looking for similarities and differences in the way the texts function, the viewpoints and ideas they express and the rhetorical situation or context surrounding these ideas and perspectives. For this assignment, you will write a 3-5 page comparative analysis of John Smith′s ″Generall Historie of Virginia, New England, and the Southern Isles,″ and Richard Frethorne′s ″Richard Frethorne, To His Parents.″ How did each of these men depict the Virginia Colony? In what ways do their accounts of the colony agree, or corroborate one another, and in what ways do they differ? How does each man describe the conditions at the Virginia Colony in terms of food, clothing, and shelter? How does each account depict relations between the colonists and Native Americans? Under what circumstances did each man choose to write his text, and how does that impact our understanding of the text? How do audience, purpose, genre, media and stance interact in each text? Is one text a more reliable historical account than the other? Why or why not? You may not use outside sources for this essay, but you can and should use and document quotes from each text as you build your analysis. Your essay should include a works cited page listing both texts, as well as in-text citations, formatted according to MLA guidelines.