Kentucky Reading and Writing RI.9-10.2
The Standard
Determine central ideas of a text and analyze in detail their development over the course of a text, including how they emerge and are shaped and refined by specific details.
Kentucky Academic Standards for Reading and Writing (2025) · Key Ideas and Details
Teacher's field guide
What This Standard Means
What Students Need to Do
- Students name the main ideas in an informational text, not just its subject. They explain how details introduce, build, and sharpen those ideas from beginning to end.
What Mastery Looks Like
- A student states a central idea in a full sentence. They use details from early and late in the text to explain how the idea develops, rather than just listing quotes.
Common Misconceptions
- Students may name a topic, such as school start times, instead of an idea about it. They may collect related facts without explaining what each fact adds.
How to Assess It
- After a short article on school start times, ask: “State one central idea. Cite a detail from the beginning, middle, and end, and explain what each adds.”
Lesson moves
Ways to Teach It
Give pairs a printed article and three sticky notes to mark where a central idea first appears, gains support, and becomes more precise.
Ask students to write: “How does the final paragraph add to the idea introduced in the opening paragraph?” Require two cited details.
Give teams six detail cards from an article to sort into “introduces,” “develops,” and “qualifies” piles, then defend one disputed choice.
Read a local news report on school start times and mark two later details that make its opening point more precise.
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Printable RI.9-10.2 Worksheet
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Related Standards
- RI.8.2
Determine central ideas of a text, and analyze how they are developed through relationships of key details, citing textual evidence, paraphrasing or summarizing...
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- RI.11-12.2
Determine two or more central ideas of a text and analyze their development over the course of the text, including how they interact and build on one another to...
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