Quick Reference: Your Path Through This Assignment
- Step 1: Reflect on Your Own Life — Start with your own story.
- Step 2: Choose Your Prominent Figure — Find someone whose story speaks to you.
- Step 3: See Yourself in Their Story — Map your experience onto theirs.
- Step 4: Research Your Figure — Go deeper with the NVC Library Research Toolkit.
- Step 5: Craft Your Thesis Statement — Build a clear, debatable claim about what you share.
- Step 6: Write Your Essay — Use the point-by-point method to bring both stories together.
- Final Thoughts
Overview & Objective
For this assignment, you will compare and contrast yourself or someone you know with a prominent current or historical figure.
Throughout history, many individuals have left indelible marks on society, politics, culture, science, and the arts. Each of these individuals made significant contributions to their fields and society at large, overcoming personal and societal challenges to leave a lasting legacy. But they were real people too, with lives just like our own.
By comparing and contrasting your life—or the life of someone you know—with that of a prominent figure, you will explore the interconnectedness of individual experiences. This will serve to deepen your understanding of the complex narratives that shape our current and historical consciousness and personal identities. This assignment invites you to compare often underrepresented stories with the realities of contemporary lives, fostering a deeper appreciation for your own story, and for the diversity of human experience.
Why This Matters
Your story matters. The experiences that shaped you—where you grew up, the obstacles you faced, the people who influenced you—are part of a larger human narrative. Many of the prominent figures on this list came from humble beginnings: they grew up in poverty, navigated discrimination, worked jobs they didn’t love, worried about money, and doubted themselves. Before they became the names we read about in textbooks, they were ordinary people making difficult choices one day at a time—just like you.
When you place your story alongside theirs, you often discover two things at once. First, these figures become less distant and untouchable; they become human. Second, your own experiences take on new meaning. The connections you find are not about making yourself bigger—they are about recognizing that the same threads of resilience, struggle, and determination run through many lives, including yours.
Step 1: Reflect on Your Own Life
Before choosing a prominent figure, start by reflecting on your own story.
The strongest essays come from students who know their own themes before they start looking for a match. Spend time thinking about what has shaped you—your experiences, your challenges, your values. The goal is to identify the threads of your own life so that when you browse the list of prominent figures, you will recognize a connection when you see one. Below are five areas to guide your reflection. You do not need to address every area; focus on the ones that resonate most.
Areas for Reflection
Upbringing and Education: What was your early life like compared to your figure’s? Think about your family’s financial situation, the kind of neighborhood you grew up in, who raised you, and what your schooling was like. Were there people who believed in you early on? Were there barriers to your education?
Challenges and Overcoming Adversity: What obstacles have you faced—personally, professionally, or academically? How did you deal with them? How did your figure navigate their own challenges, and what does that tell you about who they were?
Achievements and Impact: What are you most proud of in your life so far? It doesn’t have to be famous or public—it could be graduating, supporting your family, learning a new skill, or making a decision that changed your direction. How do your achievements compare with those of your figure?
Cultural and Historical Context: How did the time and place you were born into shape your opportunities, your identity, and the way others see you? How did the same forces shape your figure’s life?
Personal Philosophy and Values: What do you believe in? What motivates you to keep going? What did your figure believe in? Where do your values overlap, and where do they differ?
Step 2: Choose Your Prominent Figure
Select someone whose life story resonates with you or mirrors aspects of the life of someone you know.
You may choose to write about whichever prominent current or historical figure interests you. The list below is meant to give you ideas—you are not limited to it. This person can be someone who is still alive. Your choice should reflect an interest in exploring diverse perspectives and contributions.
Important: Confirm Your Source First
Before committing to a figure, make sure there is a book or publication at least 100 pages long written about them. This will serve as one of your required sources. If you cannot find such a source, choose someone else. Use the Research Toolkit in Step 4 to help you confirm this.
Each figure below includes two links: a quick biographical overview on Encyclopedia Britannica and a direct search in the NVC Library’s Biography in Context database, where you can find scholarly sources. You will need to log in with your NVC credentials to access Biography in Context.
Prominent Figures
Browse the Collection
We have assembled a collection of over 50 prominent figures from diverse backgrounds, fields, and eras—from 13th-century poets to modern-day comedians, from Texan war heroes to Nobel Prize winners. Each card includes biographical details, topic tags to help you find a personal connection, and direct links to research databases.
Remember: you are not limited to this list. If someone else’s story speaks to you, go for it—just make sure you can find that 100+ page source.
Step 3: See Yourself in Their Story
Now that you have reflected on your own life and chosen a figure, look for the places where your stories connect.
The goal of this step is not to find someone whose life is identical to yours. It is to find meaningful points of contact—moments where two very different lives illuminate something shared. The connection might be cultural, or it might have nothing to do with background at all. Below are two examples of students who found their figure and discovered unexpected parallels.
Sofia’s Reflection
Sofia is a first-generation college student at NVC. Her parents immigrated from El Salvador when she was young, and she grew up helping her mother manage the household while her father worked long hours in construction. Sofia chose Sonia Sotomayor as her figure—not because they share the same national origin, but because something in Sotomayor’s memoir felt familiar.
What caught Sofia’s attention was the way Sotomayor described watching her mother study nursing textbooks at the kitchen table late at night, determined to build a different life after losing her husband. Sofia recognized that image. Her own mother had done something similar—studying for her GED at the same table where Sofia did her homework. Neither woman had the luxury of focusing only on school; both were navigating school and survival at the same time. When Sofia read about Sotomayor feeling out of place at Princeton—unsure of how to use certain words, uncertain whether she belonged—she thought about her own first weeks at NVC, when she wondered if college was really meant for someone like her. The parallel wasn’t about fame or achievement. It was about the quiet, daily work of showing up somewhere you’ve been told you don’t belong, and deciding to stay anyway.
Marcus’s Reflection
Marcus is a part-time student and a veteran who served two deployments in Afghanistan. He chose Tammy Duckworth—not because of her Thai American background, but because he understood what it means to come home from a war zone and try to become a civilian again. After his discharge, Marcus struggled with the transition: the structure and purpose he had in the military disappeared, and he found himself unsure of what to do next. He enrolled at NVC partly because the G.I. Bill made it possible, and partly because he needed somewhere to go.
When Marcus read about Duckworth’s recovery after losing both legs in Iraq—the long rehabilitation, the refusal to let others define what she could do, and the way she channeled her experience into advocacy for other veterans—he saw a version of his own struggle, further along. The connection wasn’t cultural. It was about shared experience: the disorientation of coming home, the slow process of building a new identity outside of the uniform, and the realization that the discipline the military taught you can be applied to a completely different kind of mission.
Step 4: Research Your Figure
Conduct thorough research on your chosen figure using the NVC Library’s databases.
Look for reputable sources that offer in-depth biographical details, including their background, major accomplishments, challenges, and the cultural or historical context in which they lived. For the purposes of this essay, it is also important that you get to know them as people. What was their personality like? What was important to them? What drove their decisions?
Why Depth Matters
Writing an essay that compares two people—two real human beings with inner lives, contradictions, and private struggles—requires more than a quick scan of their Wikipedia page. Headlines tell you what someone did. Research tells you who they were. You need to understand what kept your figure up at night, what they sacrificed, what they were afraid of, and what gave them joy. That kind of detail is what makes a compare-and-contrast essay feel alive rather than mechanical. The databases below will help you find the kind of in-depth, personal, and scholarly material that moves beyond the surface.
Research Toolkit
The NVC Library Research Guide for this assignment provides access to several databases. Here is a recommended approach:
Start here:
Biography in Context — Search your figure’s name for biographical entries, scholarly articles, multimedia, and primary sources. This is your best starting point for getting to know your figure as a person.
Deepen your research:
Academic Search Complete — A multi-disciplinary database with full-text scholarly articles. Search for your figure’s name combined with keywords related to your comparison areas (e.g., “Frida Kahlo” AND resilience).
Academic OneFile — Peer-reviewed scholarly content across academic disciplines.
U.S. History in Context / World History in Context — For historical context, primary sources, and background on the era your figure lived in.
Search tips:
Use AND to narrow your search: “Sandra Cisneros” AND education. Use OR to broaden it: “Selena Quintanilla” OR “Selena Quintanilla-Perez”. Use quotation marks around full names to search for exact phrases.
Managing your citations:
NoodleTools is free citation software available to NVC students through the library. Set up your account early so you can save and organize your sources as you go.
Step 5: Craft Your Thesis Statement
Your thesis statement is the backbone of your essay—a single sentence that tells the reader exactly what you are arguing.
A strong thesis does more than announce your topic. It makes a claim—a specific, debatable statement that someone could reasonably argue against. If everyone would automatically agree with your thesis, it is probably too obvious. Your goal is to argue for a specific insight that emerges from placing these two lives side by side.
For a deeper treatment of what makes a thesis statement effective, see Lecture Notes: Mastering Thesis Statements. For guidance on making your thesis argumentative rather than explanatory, see Lecture Notes: Argumentative Thesis Statements.
The Thesis Statement Template
[Prominent Figure] and [Person/the Author] demonstrate [a specific “superpower”].
What Is a “Superpower”?
A superpower isn’t just a positive trait like “hardworking” or “kind.” It’s a specific claim about how an ability, attitude, or set of values shows up in someone’s life. Think of it as two parts working together:
An attitude or value → meeting an obstacle or driving an action
Neither part works alone. Curiosity by itself isn’t a superpower — everyone values curiosity. But curiosity that pushes through something specific, or curiosity that drives someone to do something specific, becomes a real argument you can build an essay around.
Examples of superpowers:
- Person 1 and Person 2 both demonstrate how “belief in the importance of education (attitude) helped them persevere when the system tried to push them out (obstacle)”.
- Person 1 and Person 2 “used storytelling to affirm the experiences of people who have been silenced (action) because they believed in their own story (attitude)”.
- Person 1 and Person 2 “created work that reshapes how others see the world (action) because of their own grief and hardship (attitude)”.
- Person 1 and Person 2 “believed in their right to join the nursing profession (attitude) despite others maintaining there was no room (obstacle)”.
Notice that each of these names something specific a person believes or values, and connects it to something they push through or push toward.
Make sure your superpower has both parts:
- “Person A and Person B both share a deep commitment to education” — this is all attitude. What does that commitment push through, or what does it make possible?
- “Person A and Person B both served in the U.S. military” — this is all action. What about their service matters? A sense of duty to protect others? A desire to prove themselves in a world that underestimated them?
If you find yourself with only one half, ask what’s missing. A superpower without an obstacle or action has nothing to push against or toward. An obstacle or action without an attitude has no engine behind it.
Examples Using the Template
Example 1:
- Prominent Figure: Marie Curie
- Person: The author’s grandmother, a pioneering scientist in her own right
- Superpower attitude: personal resilience
- Superpower action / obstacle: allowed them to succeed in the face of societal expectations
Resulting Thesis: Marie Curie and the author’s grandmother both demonstrated how personal resilience allowed them to succeed in the face of societal expectations.
Example 2:
- Prominent Figure: Sandra Cisneros
- Person: The author
- Superpower attitude: unyielding belief in the power of storytelling
- Superpower action / obstacle: fought to reclaim spaces where they felt invisible
Resulting Thesis: Sandra Cisneros and the author fought to reclaim spaces where they felt invisible because of their unyielding belief in the power of storytelling.
Placement reminder: Your thesis statement should be the last sentence of your introduction paragraph. It comes after your hook (an engaging opening) and your bridge (background information on the two people). This structure lets your introduction build momentum toward your main claim. For more on structuring your introduction, see Lecture Notes: Mastering Thesis Statements.
Step 6: Write Your Essay
Your essay should include no fewer than 1,500 words (~4 pages), not including your Works Cited page.
This is a compare and contrast essay, which means you need a clear organizational method to discuss both your life and the life of your prominent figure. For this assignment, you should use the point-by-point method.
Why Point-by-Point?
When comparing and contrasting two subjects, there are two main methods: the block method (discussing everything about one subject, then everything about the other) and the point-by-point method (discussing both subjects together, organized around specific points of comparison). For a detailed explanation of both, see Lecture Notes: Comparing & Contrasting.
The point-by-point method is the stronger choice for this assignment because it allows you to draw direct connections between two lives in each paragraph, rather than leaving the reader to make those connections on their own. The organizing elements in the point-by-point method are called criteria—specific lenses through which you examine both subjects. The five areas for reflection from Step 1 (upbringing, challenges, achievements, cultural context, and values) are natural criteria for this essay.
The Secret Sauce
Each criterion you choose for your point-by-point comparison becomes the main point of an argumentative paragraph. When you select your criteria, you are building the architecture of your argument. If your paper feels too short, the solution is not to pad existing paragraphs—it is to add another criterion that strengthens your case. For more on this, see the “Point-by-Point Secret Sauce” section of Lecture Notes: Comparing & Contrasting.
Final Thoughts
This assignment is an opportunity to engage deeply with history and with your own story.
Your comparative analysis should not only highlight differences and similarities but also foster an appreciation for the diverse contributions and experiences that enrich our understanding of the human condition. When you place your life next to the life of someone who lived in a different time, a different place, or a different set of circumstances, you often discover something you couldn’t see on your own. That discovery—the moment when a connection clicks into place—is what makes this kind of writing worthwhile.