Kentucky Reading and Writing RI.7.4
The Standard
Determine the meaning of words and phrases as they are used in a text, including figurative, connotative and technical meanings; analyze the impact of word choices on meaning and tone.
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 use nearby sentences to work out unfamiliar words, including technical terms and language that is not literal. They explain how a writer’s word choice shapes the reader’s impression and the tone.
What Mastery Looks Like
- Given a short article, a student explains what a word means in its sentence and points to clues nearby. They can explain why calling a crowd a “mob” sounds more threatening.
Common Misconceptions
- Students may think “the city woke up” means the city was literally asleep. They may treat “mob” and “group” as equal, or use the everyday meaning of a science term when the article gives it a different meaning.
How to Assess It
- Exit ticket: “The town limped back to life after the flood.” What does “limped” mean here, and how would “returned” change the tone?
Lesson moves
Ways to Teach It
Give pairs two sentence cards, “The river swallowed the road” and “The river covered the road,” to place on alarming and neutral mats.
Ask, “How would the tone change if a report called protesters a mob instead of a crowd? Explain your answer.”
Play word-swap: teams replace “devastated” in “The storm devastated the coast” with “affected,” then write one sentence explaining the change.
Post a weather watch and warning from the National Weather Service; students highlight phrases showing why each term signals a different level of risk.
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Printable RI.7.4 Worksheet
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Related Standards
- RI.8.4
Determine the meaning of words and phrases as they are used in a text, including figurative, connotative and technical meanings; analyze the impact of specific ...
- RI.6.4
Determine the meaning of words and phrases as they are used in a text, including figurative, connotative and technical meanings; analyze the impact of a specifi...
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