CCSS.ELA-Literacy.WHST.11-12.1d
The Standard
Establish and maintain a formal style and objective tone while attending to the norms and conventions of the discipline in which they are writing.
Common Core State Standards for English Language Arts
What This Standard Means
Students need to write arguments that sound appropriate for history, science, or technical subjects. They should avoid slang, personal attacks, casual phrasing, and emotional overstatement. They also need to use the right format, vocabulary, evidence style, and citation habits for the subject they are writing in.
Mastery looks like a clear, controlled voice that stays focused on evidence and reasoning. Students can make a strong claim without sounding biased or dramatic. They often get stuck using first person, vague words like “bad” or “good,” conversational phrases, or discipline-mismatched language, such as treating a lab report like an opinion column.
Ways to Teach It
- Give students a casual paragraph about a historical or scientific issue and have them revise it into formal, objective academic language.
- Ask students to write two versions of the same claim, one informal and one discipline-appropriate, then explain the changes they made.
- Use a three-sentence exit ticket where students identify one informal phrase, one biased word, and one needed discipline-specific term.
- Show a real lab report, court brief, or historical journal excerpt and have students list tone and format rules the writer follows.
Before This Standard
If students are struggling here, check these first.
Related Standards
- CCSS.ELA-Literacy.W.11-12.2e
Establish and maintain a formal style and objective tone while attending to the norms and conventions of the discipline in which they are writing.
- CCSS.ELA-Literacy.WHST.9-10.2e
Establish and maintain a formal style and objective tone while attending to the norms and conventions of the discipline in which they are writing.
- CCSS.ELA-Literacy.W.11-12.1d
Establish and maintain a formal style and objective tone while attending to the norms and conventions of the discipline in which they are writing.
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