CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RI.8.6
The Standard
Determine an author's point of view or purpose in a text and analyze how the author acknowledges and responds to conflicting evidence or viewpoints.
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 the author’s position or goal and support it with details from the text. They explain how the author handles evidence or opinions that challenge the main argument.
What Mastery Looks Like
- Students clearly state what the author believes or wants readers to think or do. They trace an opposing claim or evidence and explain how the author’s response strengthens, limits, or weakens the argument.
Common Misconceptions
- Students often confuse the topic with the author’s position or purpose. They may spot an opposing view but fail to explain whether the author concedes, rebuts, qualifies, or dismisses it.
How to Assess It
- Give students a short editorial and ask: State the author’s position, identify one opposing view, and explain the response using two quoted phrases.
Lesson moves
Ways to Teach It
Give pairs a printed editorial, two highlighters, and sticky notes to mark the claim, opposing evidence, and the author’s response.
Have students write five sentences explaining whether acknowledging a counterargument makes an author more convincing, using one passage detail.
Run a card sort where teams match short passages to response labels: concede, rebut, qualify, or dismiss.
Compare two online reviews of the same product and identify how each reviewer handles a negative fact or opposing opinion.
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Printable RI.8.6 Worksheet
A ready-to-print activity worksheet aligned to CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RI.8.6, 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
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What This Unlocks
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Related Standards
- CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RI.11-12.6
Determine an author's point of view or purpose in a text in which the rhetoric is particularly effective, analyzing how style and content contribute to the powe...
- CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RI.6.6
Determine an author's point of view or purpose in a text and explain how it is conveyed in the text.
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