South Dakota ELA 9-10.W.8.d

ELAGrades 9–10Writing

The Standard

9-10.W.8
Gather relevant information from multiple sources.
Avoid plagiarism and follow a standard format for citation.

South Dakota English Language Arts Standards (2025)

Teacher's field guide

What This Standard Means

What Students Need to Do

Students identify which words and ideas in their writing came from a source. They use quotation marks for exact words and cite both quotes and paraphrases in one consistent format.

What Mastery Looks Like

A student can paraphrase an article without copying its sentence structure or changing its meaning. They add an in-text citation and a matching Works Cited entry that lets a reader find the article.

Common Misconceptions

Students may think changing a few words makes an idea their own. They may cite direct quotes but leave paraphrases uncited, or list a source at the end without citing it in the paragraph.

How to Assess It

Give students this source: Ana Ruiz, “River Cleanup,” The Daily Record, 2 Nov. 2025, p. 3, reports that volunteers collected 40 bags of trash along the river. Ask for a paraphrase, an MLA in-text citation, and a matching Works Cited entry.

Lesson moves

Ways to Teach It

  1. Give pairs printed source paragraphs and sticky notes to mark borrowed words, then have them write a paraphrase with an in-text citation.

  2. Post a source sentence and ask students to write two sentences explaining why a paraphrase of it still needs a citation.

  3. Play citation repair: teams fix missing quotation marks, in-text citations, and Works Cited entries in three sample paragraphs.

  4. Show a school newspaper draft that copies a sentence from a news article, then have students add quotation marks and a citation.

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