Essays / Typical Features of athenian democracy v. modern western democracies [2]

"Compare typical features of modern western democracies with the classical Athenian understanding and practice of democracy. Should modern western democracies change to recover any aspects of the original?"

I'm having real difficulty starting this essay. I have done a brief background of Athenian democracy, but i don't know how I'm gonna fill up 1500 words.. Can anyone help me with the key features of each one? I think I'm going to conclude with the fact that direct democracy (as Athens was) is a transitional state to a working democratic system but I don't know what points to make leading up to that..

Any ideas?