CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RI.8.10
The Standard
By the end of the year, read and comprehend literary nonfiction at the high end of the grades 6—8 text complexity band independently and proficiently.
Common Core State Standards for English Language Arts · Reading Standards for Informational Text
What This Standard Means
Students need to handle challenging nonfiction on their own. They should read essays, speeches, articles, memoir excerpts, and arguments with dense ideas, unfamiliar words, and layered structure. They need to track claims, evidence, tone, purpose, and key details without heavy teacher support.
Mastery looks like steady independent reading, accurate summaries, strong annotations, and answers that cite the text. Students often get stuck with long sentences, abstract vocabulary, background knowledge gaps, and losing the main idea when the author adds examples or counterclaims.
Ways to Teach It
- Give pairs a printed speech excerpt, highlighters, and sticky notes to mark claims, evidence, confusing lines, and shifts in tone.
- Ask students to write: Which sentence best shows the author’s purpose, and what words make that purpose clear?
- Use a five-minute exit ticket with one summary sentence, one cited detail, and one question the text still raises.
- Connect the reading to a current news article on the same issue, then compare how each author presents facts and opinions.
Before This Standard
If students are struggling here, check these first.
Plan a Lesson for CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RI.8.10
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What This Unlocks
Mastery here sets students up for these next.
Related Standards
- CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RI.6.10
By the end of the year, read and comprehend literary nonfiction in the grades 6—8 text complexity band proficiently, with scaffolding as needed at the high end ...
- CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RL.8.10
By the end of the year, read and comprehend literature, including stories, dramas, and poems, at the high end of grades 6—8 text complexity band independently a...
- CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RL.5.10
By the end of the year, read and comprehend literature, including stories, dramas, and poetry, at the high end of the grades 4—5 text complexity band independen...