South Dakota ELA 11-12.RI.6
The Standard
Determine an author’s point of view or purpose in a text in which the rhetoric is particularly effective, analyzing how style and content contribute to its overall rhetorical effectiveness. Evaluate a text for bias, misinformation, propaganda, counter arguments, and/or fallacies.
South Dakota English Language Arts Standards (2025)
Teacher's field guide
What This Standard Means
What Students Need to Do
- Students figure out what a writer wants readers to believe or do. They explain how wording and evidence make the case persuasive, then check for bias, misleading claims, weak counterarguments, and faulty reasoning.
What Mastery Looks Like
- A student can point to specific words and evidence that help a writer persuade an audience. They can check a key claim against another source and explain whether the writer fairly answers an opposing view.
Common Misconceptions
- Students may call any strong opinion propaganda or treat a cited number as proof without checking its source. They may mistake mentioning an opposing view for answering it, or assume persuasive wording makes a claim true.
How to Assess It
- Give students this invented claim: “Every serious student supports a phone ban. After the ban, test scores rose 12 percent, so the ban caused the gain.” Ask them to name the purpose, explain one persuasive phrase, identify a reasoning error, and say what evidence would check the statistic.
Lesson moves
Ways to Teach It
Give pairs a printed editorial supporting school phone bans; use two highlighter colors for persuasive wording and evidence, then label each move's effect.
Ask: “Which sentence in the phone-ban editorial most sways its audience, and does its evidence hold up?” Have students write three sentences.
Hand pairs four claim cards from a phone-ban editorial; sort them into supported claim, answered counterargument, false dilemma, or unverified statistic.
Show a screenshot of a school board campaign flyer; have students check its spending claim against the district budget and note missing context.
Free download
Printable 11-12.RI.6 Worksheet
A ready-to-print activity worksheet aligned to 11-12.RI.6, with an answer key for the teacher on its own page. No account needed.
PDF, US Letter, prints cleanly in black and white.
Download the worksheetKeep exploring
Related Standards
Turn this exact standard into a lesson
Grade, subject, topic, and the complete standard are prefilled. Create one free, no account needed.
Also for this standard:Make a WorksheetMake a QuizMake a Sub Lesson