Maryland ELA RI.7.10

ELA7th GradeReading Informational Text

The Standard

By the end of the year, read and comprehend informational texts, including history/social studies, science, and technical texts, and literary nonfiction in the grades 6–8 text complexity band proficiently, with scaffolding as needed at the high end of the range.

Maryland College and Career Ready Standards for English Language Arts (2025)

Teacher's field guide

What This Standard Means

What Students Need to Do: Students read middle school articles, historical accounts, instructions, and literary nonfiction. They work out what each text says, using context, headings, and diagrams when the reading gets dense.
What Mastery Looks Like: Students can explain a text's main point and answer questions about key details, using the text to support their answers. With a brief glossary or guiding question, they can make sense of a harder passage and explain it in their own words.
Common Misconceptions: Students may pick one striking fact and mistake it for the main point. They may skip unfamiliar terms or ignore a diagram instead of using it to understand the text.
How to Assess It: Give students a one-page article about why cities get hotter than nearby fields, with a labeled diagram. Ask: “Why do cities get hotter? Give two supporting details, including one from the diagram.”

Lesson moves

Ways to Teach It

Give pairs a printed article on urban heat islands; have them label its diagram and draw arrows to sentences that explain it.
Read a short factory worker memoir excerpt, then ask, “What does the writer want us to understand about this work?”
Give teams claim cards and evidence cards from an article about water filters; have them match each claim to its best evidence.
Hand out a local bus rider guide and schedule; ask students to plan a trip and point to the instructions and times they used.

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