Kentucky Reading and Writing RL.11-12.2
The Standard
Determine two or more themes or 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 produce a complex account.
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 identify two ideas a story develops about people or society, not just two topics. They track both ideas from beginning to end and explain how the ideas affect each other.
What Mastery Looks Like
- A student can state two clear theme claims and support each with moments from the beginning, middle, and end. They can explain how group pressure keeps a harmful tradition alive, while the tradition gives people a reason to join in.
Common Misconceptions
- Students name a topic like “tradition” instead of making a claim about it. They discuss two themes separately, or assume Tessie's late protest means she opposed the lottery all along.
How to Assess It
- Exit ticket: Write two theme claims about “The Lottery.” Cite a detail from the opening, middle, and ending, then explain how the themes connect.
Lesson moves
Ways to Teach It
Give pairs two colors of sticky notes to mark tradition and group pressure clues in copies of “The Lottery” from beginning to end.
Ask: How does group pressure keep the lottery going, and how does the lottery increase that pressure? Support your answer with two moments.
Give pairs four event cards: the black box, Old Man Warner, Tessie's protest, and the final stones. Have them order and connect the events.
Read a school anti-bullying policy and underline a rule about bystanders, then compare it with the villagers' choices.
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Printable RL.11-12.2 Worksheet
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Related Standards
- RI.9-10.2
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 spe...
- RL.9-10.2
Determine a theme or central idea of a text, and analyze in detail its development over the course of the text, including how it emerges and is shaped and refin...
- 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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