Kentucky Reading and Writing RI.11-12.6
The Standard
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 contribute to the effectiveness of the text.
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 identify the author’s position, perspective, and intended response from readers. They explain how details, word choice, and sentence patterns work together for a particular audience.
What Mastery Looks Like
- A student can point to a specific detail and a wording choice, then explain how each helps the author reach the audience. They can explain why another audience might respond differently.
Common Misconceptions
- Students may name the topic instead of the author’s purpose. They may spot repetition or a rhetorical question without explaining what it does for the audience.
How to Assess It
- Give students a paragraph from Douglass’s Fourth of July speech. Ask them to mark one contrast and explain in two sentences what Douglass wants his audience to reconsider and how the contrast helps.
Lesson moves
Ways to Teach It
Give pairs a printed paragraph from Douglass’s Fourth of July speech and two highlighters to mark references to freedom and slavery.
Ask: Why does Douglass challenge an audience celebrating the holiday? Write a two-sentence answer using one phrase from the speech.
Match three lines from the speech to contrast, repetition, or rhetorical question cards, then explain each match to a partner.
Write a 60-second comment to the principal arguing for a longer lunch, using one detail from your school day and a deliberate tone shift.
Free download
Printable RI.11-12.6 Worksheet
A ready-to-print activity worksheet aligned to RI.11-12.6, 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 worksheetKeep exploring
Related Standards
- RI.7.6
Determine an author's perspective and purpose in a text, and analyze how the author distinguishes his or her position from that of others.
- RI.6.6
Determine an author's perspective and purpose in a text, and explain how it is conveyed in a text.
- RI.9-10.6
Determine an author’s point of view, perspective and purpose in a text, and analyze how an author uses rhetoric to advance that point of view or purpose.
- RI.8.6
Determine an author's perspective and purpose in a text, and analyze how the author acknowledges and responds to conflicting evidence or viewpoints.
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