South Dakota ELA 6-8.WHST.6.a

ELAGrades 6–8Writing: History/Social Studies, Science, and Technical Subjects

The Standard

6-8.WHST.6: Use technology, including digital tools/platforms, to format, produce and publish writing

Link to and cite sources.

South Dakota English Language Arts Standards (2025)

Teacher's field guide

What Students Need to Do: Students show where facts in a history or science explanation came from. They add a direct link to the source page and give enough details for a reader to find it.
What Mastery Looks Like: A student links a borrowed fact to the page that supports it. The citation names the page and its author or publisher, and the link opens to the right page.
Common Misconceptions: Students may paste a bare URL at the end without showing which fact it supports. Some link to search results instead of the source page, or name a whole website instead of the page they used.
How to Assess It: Give students https://www.weather.gov/safety/lightning and ask: "Write one lightning safety fact from this page. Link the fact to the page, then cite the page title and publisher."

Lesson moves

Give pairs a printed NOAA lightning page; they highlight one useful fact, then link and cite the page in a shared document.
Ask: "If your reader clicks your link, what should they see?" Have students compare a direct page link with a search results link.
Hand out four sample citations, including a bare URL and a wrong page title; teams repair each one using the source pages.
Have students write a two-sentence school recycling notice using the city recycling webpage, then link and cite the exact page they used.

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A ready-to-print activity worksheet aligned to 6-8.WHST.6.a, with an answer key for the teacher on its own page. No account needed.

PDF, US Letter, prints cleanly in black and white.

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