CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RL.7.10

ELA7th GradeRange of Reading and Level of Text Complexity

The Standard

By the end of the year, read and comprehend literature, including stories, dramas, and poems, in the grades 6-8 text complexity band proficiently, with scaffolding as needed at the high end of the range.

Common Core State Standards for English Language Arts · Reading Standards for Literature

What This Standard Means

What Students Need to Do

Students read and understand challenging stories, dramas, and poems. They track plot, character, theme, structure, and language, then support their ideas with details. They use rereading or other supports for harder texts.

What Mastery Looks Like

A student can summarize a challenging story, drama, or poem and explain its characters, conflict, theme, and language. The student supports interpretations with relevant details and rereads difficult parts when needed.

Common Misconceptions

Students may think finishing a text means they understood it. They may retell events without explaining theme, ignore figurative language, or read plays and poems like ordinary prose.

How to Assess It

Give students a short literary passage. Ask them to write an accurate summary, state one inference, and support it with two details from the text.

Ways to Teach It

  • Give pairs a cut-up scene to sequence, then have them annotate clues that reveal character, conflict, and mood.
  • After reading a poem, ask students to explain how one line develops the theme, using two quoted phrases.
  • Run a genre card game where teams answer an inference question about a story, drama, or poem and point to supporting evidence.
  • Have students connect a character's difficult choice to a school or community situation, then compare consequences using a two-column chart.

Related Standards

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