Kentucky Reading and Writing RL.7.9

ELA7th GradeReading Literature

The Standard

Compare and contrast a fictional portrayal and a historical account of the same period as a means to understand how authors use history.

Kentucky Academic Standards for Reading and Writing (2025) · Integration of Knowledge and Ideas

Teacher's field guide

What Students Need to Do: Students read a fictional Titanic scene and a historical account of the sinking. They compare details in both texts and explain how the story uses history.
What Mastery Looks Like: A student can name a fact both texts include and point to a detail found only in the story. They can explain how that detail helps readers picture the event, using evidence from both texts.
Common Misconceptions: Students may treat an invented character as a real passenger or assume that an invented character makes the whole scene false. They may also call a detail invented just because a short historical account leaves it out.
How to Assess It: Give students a short Titanic fiction excerpt and a short historical account. Ask: “Name one detail in both texts and one found only in the story. How does the story use that detail? Cite a line from each text.”

Lesson moves

Give pairs a Titanic fiction excerpt and a historical account; have them mark shared details in blue and text-only details in yellow.
Ask students to write: “Why might a novelist follow one imagined passenger while a historian describes what happened to the whole ship?”
Play a source-match game with six Titanic detail cards; students sort them under fiction, account, or both and find supporting lines.
Compare a Titanic museum account with a novel scene; have students list two historical facts the novelist kept.

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A ready-to-print activity worksheet aligned to RL.7.9, with an answer key for the teacher on its own page. No account needed.

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