South Dakota ELA 8.RI.8.c

ELA8th GradeReading Informational Text

The Standard

8.RI.8: Delineate (break down) and evaluate the argument and specific claims in a text

Recognize when irrelevant evidence is introduced.

South Dakota English Language Arts Standards (2025)

Teacher's field guide

What Students Need to Do: Students identify evidence that does not help prove or challenge a claim. They explain why it does not belong, even when it sounds interesting or is about the same general topic.
What Mastery Looks Like: A student can read an argument for a later school start time and spot a sentence about the cafeteria menu as irrelevant. They can keep a bus-route concern because it challenges the proposal.
Common Misconceptions: Students may treat any fact about school as relevant to a claim about start times. They may also reject evidence just because it disagrees with the writer's claim.
How to Assess It: Give students this prompt: “Claim: School should start at 8:30 a.m. Teens need more sleep. Bus routes would need to change. The cafeteria serves pizza on Fridays.” Ask them to cross out the irrelevant sentence and explain why.

Lesson moves

Give pairs printed evidence strips about later school start times and have them sort each strip into supports, challenges, or irrelevant.
Ask students to write why a bus-route concern belongs in a later-start argument but a cafeteria menu does not.
Play a quick round of Evidence Sort: read one claim and four facts, then have students hold up the number of the irrelevant fact.
Show a school board letter about start times and ask students to underline one detail that does not address the proposed change.

Free download

A ready-to-print activity worksheet aligned to 8.RI.8.c, 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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