South Dakota ELA 8.W.8.d

ELA8th GradeWriting

The Standard

Follow a standard format for citation.

South Dakota English Language Arts Standards (2025)

Teacher's field guide

What Students Need to Do: Students use an assigned citation style, such as MLA, to credit quotes and paraphrases. They write brief citations in their work and matching entries in a source list.
What Mastery Looks Like: A student can cite a paraphrase from a book using the author's name and page number. They can write a matching Works Cited entry and check its details against an MLA model.
Common Misconceptions: Students may paste a URL instead of writing a citation. They may cite direct quotes but not paraphrases, or use an author name that does not match the source list.
How to Assess It: On an exit ticket, give this source card: Ana Ruiz, River Habitats, Cedar Press, 2022, page 14. Ask students to write an MLA in-text citation for a paraphrase and a matching Works Cited entry.

Lesson moves

Give pairs a book's title page and copyright page; have them build an MLA Works Cited entry and mark where each detail came from.
Show (Ruiz 14) and (River Habitats 14) for a book by Ana Ruiz; ask which matches a Ruiz Works Cited entry.
Play citation match: hand out four in-text citations and four Works Cited entries, then have teams pair each citation with its source.
Use a local news article with a named author, date, and URL; cite one paraphrased fact in a letter to the principal.

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

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