CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RST.11-12.6

ELAGrades 11–12Craft and Structure

The Standard

Analyze the author's purpose in providing an explanation, describing a procedure, or discussing an experiment in a text, identifying important issues that remain unresolved.

Common Core State Standards for English Language Arts · Reading Standards for Literacy in Science and Technical Subjects 6—12

What This Standard Means

Students need to read science or technical writing and figure out why the author explains something, lays out a procedure, or reports an experiment. They should connect choices in the text to the author’s goal, such as informing, warning, justifying a method, or pointing toward future research.

Mastery looks like a student saying, “The author included this procedure to show the results are reliable, but the text does not answer why the sample size was small.” Students often get stuck by summarizing the topic instead of analyzing purpose, or by missing unanswered questions hidden in limitations, qualifiers, and vague wording.

Ways to Teach It

  • Give students a short lab report and highlighters, then mark sentences as explanation, procedure, experiment, or unresolved issue.
  • Ask students to write: What did the author want readers to believe or understand, and what question is still unanswered?
  • Use an exit ticket with one paragraph from a technical article and ask for the author’s purpose plus one unresolved issue.
  • Have students compare a medical device instruction sheet to a product safety report and identify how purpose changes the writing choices.

Before This Standard

If students are struggling here, check these first.

Plan a Lesson for CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RST.11-12.6

Generate a complete lesson plan aligned to this standard, with objectives, activities, and materials. Free, no account needed.

Chat About This StandardGenerate a Lesson Plan

Related Standards

Standard text verified against corestandards.org on July 10, 2026.

Page updated July 10, 2026.

Send Feedback