CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RI.6.3
The Standard
Analyze in detail how a key individual, event, or idea is introduced, illustrated, and elaborated in a text (e.g., through examples or anecdotes).
Common Core State Standards for English Language Arts · Reading Standards for Informational Text
Teacher's field guide
What This Standard Means
What Students Need to Do
- Students identify a key person, event, or idea and trace how the author develops it across a text. They explain how examples, facts, anecdotes, definitions, and details build understanding.
What Mastery Looks Like
- Given an informational passage, students cite evidence from the beginning, middle, and later sections. They explain how examples, anecdotes, facts, or definitions add to the reader’s understanding.
Common Misconceptions
- Students retell details in order without explaining how the author develops the subject. They may treat illustration as a picture, choose unrelated details, or mistake any first mention for a full introduction.
How to Assess It
- Give students a three-paragraph article. Ask them to identify where one key subject is introduced, illustrated, and elaborated, then explain how each part builds understanding.
Lesson moves
Ways to Teach It
Cut a short article into sections, then have groups sort them as introduction, illustration, or elaboration and defend each choice.
Ask students to write: Which detail most develops the author’s main subject, and what does it help the reader understand?
Play a card match game pairing excerpts with labels such as introduction, example, anecdote, definition, and added detail.
Compare two news profiles of the same person and mark how each writer introduces and develops that person differently.
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Printable RI.6.3 Worksheet
A ready-to-print activity worksheet aligned to CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RI.6.3, with an answer key for the teacher on its own page. No account needed.
PDF, US Letter, prints cleanly in black and white.
Download the worksheetLearning progression
Where This Standard Sits
See the whole path on the Reading: Informational Text progression map.
Before This Standard
If students are struggling here, check these first.
What This Unlocks
Mastery here sets students up for these next.
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Related Standards
- CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RI.9-10.3
Analyze how the author unfolds an analysis or series of ideas or events, including the order in which the points are made, how they are introduced and developed...
- CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RI.11-12.3
Analyze a complex set of ideas or sequence of events and explain how specific individuals, ideas, or events interact and develop over the course of the text.
- CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RI.1.7
Use the illustrations and details in a text to describe its key ideas.
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