CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RI.8.3

ELA8th GradeKey Ideas and Details

The Standard

Analyze how a text makes connections among and distinctions between individuals, ideas, or events (e.g., through comparisons, analogies, or categories).

Common Core State Standards for English Language Arts · Reading Standards for Informational Text

What This Standard Means

Students need to explain how an informational text links people, ideas, or events, and how it separates them. They should notice signal words, repeated terms, categories, timelines, comparisons, contrasts, and analogies. The goal is not just naming two things in the text, but explaining the relationship the author builds between them.

Mastery looks like a student saying, “The author compares these two reformers to show different methods for the same goal,” with quoted evidence. Students often get stuck summarizing each part separately, missing the connection, or calling everything a comparison even when the author is sorting, sequencing, or showing cause and effect.

Ways to Teach It

Give pairs a printed article and have them color-code comparisons, contrasts, categories, and cause-effect links with four highlighters.
Ask students to write: “How does the author connect two people, ideas, or events, and why does that connection matter?”
Use an exit ticket with one paragraph and ask students to name the relationship shown and underline the evidence.
Have students compare two news articles on the same event and chart how each one groups people, causes, or effects.