South Dakota ELA 9-10.RL.6
The Standard
Assess how point of view and/or author purpose shapes the content and style of culturally diverse texts, including those from outside the United States. Reflect on how personal experiences impact interpretations of a text.
South Dakota English Language Arts Standards (2025)
Teacher's field guide
What This Standard Means
What Students Need to Do
- Students read stories from different cultures, including one from outside the United States. They explain how the narrator's view or the writer's likely aim shapes the details and language. They consider how their own experiences shape a first reading.
What Mastery Looks Like
- A student cites the villagers' descriptions in "The Handsomest Drowned Man in the World" to show how their viewpoint builds sympathy for the stranger. They use a word choice to support a possible writer's purpose and explain how an experience shaped their first reaction.
Common Misconceptions
- Students may treat the narrator's view as the writer's belief. They may assume one story speaks for an entire culture. They may mistake their first reaction for something the text actually says.
How to Assess It
- After reading the opening of "The Handsomest Drowned Man in the World," ask students to quote one detail that shapes their view of the stranger. Have them explain why the writer might include it and what experience shaped their first impression.
Lesson moves
Ways to Teach It
Give pairs colored pencils and a page from García Márquez's story; mark what villagers see in blue and what they imagine in red.
Ask pairs, "When villagers imagine the stranger's life, whose feelings guide us, and how might your experiences change your reading?"
Play Detail Detective: give teams four lines from the story and ask which best supports a claim about the narrator's view.
Have students write school dance announcements for classmates and families, then circle where the audience changes the details or tone.
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Printable 9-10.RL.6 Worksheet
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Related Standards
- 2.RL.6
Describe how the point of view from various characters and/or purpose shapes the content of a text.
- 11-12.RL.6
Analyze how the author's background, point of view, and/or purpose shapes the content and style from diverse texts. Evaluate the author's choice of what is stat...
- 9-10.RH.6
Compare the point of view of two or more authors for how they treat the same or similar topics, including which details they include and emphasize in their resp...
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