Kentucky Reading and Writing RI.11-12.5
The Standard
Analyze and evaluate the effectiveness of the structure an author uses in his or her exposition or argument.
Kentucky Academic Standards for Reading and Writing (2025) · Craft and Structure
Teacher's field guide
What This Standard Means
What Students Need to Do
- Students trace how an informational text moves from opening to conclusion. They explain how the order of definitions, examples, evidence, and objections affects a reader’s understanding or response.
What Mastery Looks Like
- They identify the job of each section, such as defining a term, presenting evidence, or answering an objection. They use specific passages to judge whether the order works for the author’s purpose and explain whether another order would work better.
Common Misconceptions
- Students may summarize each paragraph without explaining why it appears where it does. They may assume a claim must always come first or mistake an opposing view for the author’s own position.
How to Assess It
- After reading a short article, ask: “Choose one example or opposing view. Why did the writer put it there, and would another placement work better? Use one passage to support your answer.”
Lesson moves
Ways to Teach It
Cut a printed four-paragraph opinion article into sections; have pairs reorder them, compare with the original, and mark where the argument gains or loses force.
Have students write whether moving an article’s strongest example to the opening would help, citing two passages.
Show two versions of a six-sentence explanation with different orders; pairs race to identify which order clarifies the main idea and why.
Read a local news article about a proposed school rule; reorder three facts for a parent email and explain why the new order helps.
Free download
Printable RI.11-12.5 Worksheet
A ready-to-print activity worksheet aligned to RI.11-12.5, 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 worksheetKeep exploring
Related Standards
- RI.11-12.6
Determine an author's point of view, perspective and purpose in a text in which the rhetoric is particularly effective, analyzing how style and content contribu...
- RI.7.5
Analyze the structure an author uses to organize a text, including how the different sections contribute to the whole and to the development of the ideas.
- RL.4.5
Analyze the structure the author uses in a story, poem or drama, considering how the parts of the text contribute to the whole.
Turn this exact standard into a lesson
Grade, subject, topic, and the complete standard are prefilled. Create one free, no account needed.
Also for this standard:Make a WorksheetMake a QuizMake a Sub Lesson